Why doesn’t California build more condos?

CONSTRUCTION DEFECT REFORM MOVES FORWARD TO APPROPRIATIONS!!

In the before times, up to 2016, Berkeley Fire Department published an annual report called the NFPA Survey Report that categorized the dept's activities.

Hard to say what the current workload trend is with no data for 10 years

@igortregub.bsky.social

Here's a screen shot of an old report.

Berkeley traffic diverter at Grant St/Berkeley Way

To everyone saying, "How oh how do we stop Google Maps cut-through traffic??"

...I present to you the solution, which we've had for 50 years in Berkeley.

The great @muhammadspeaks.bsky.social testifying on behalf of AB 2074, which @cayimby.bsky.social is proud to co-sponsor! It's time to build housing and revive California's downtowns!

"I've been radicalized on bicycle and pedestrian safety."

CA Assemblymember @buffywicks.bsky.social at yesterday's transportation committee.

You love to hear it! 👏🏻👏🏻

Sadly ironic that this slide features of picture of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge multiuse path, which @mtcbata.bsky.social closed on weekdays to appease drivers.

The problem is this post-Moses trend in treating the "community" as if it's monolithic and knows more about transportation planning than the experts. We as a society can say "more transit good, road expansion bad" and ask locals to weigh in on where staircases go, not "should this even happen?"

This reads like a parody, but nope it's a real LinkedIn post

Arbitrary vetoes of new housing are the true moral crisis Opposition to Marina Safeway project reflects a broader pattern of blocking new housing, worsening affordability and limiting access to high-resource neighborhoods.

The San Francisco Examiner published my op-ed in support of housing and the Marina Safeway project!

A response to another piece declaring YIMBYism a "moral myth." I work for a friggin Center for Ethics in Society, so naturally wasn't gonna sit this one out...

LA Metro is the only supporter of the proposed repeal of SB 79. Much more than any city, LA Metro is a creature of the state, created by the legislature recently. The legislature can and absolutely should nuke and pave over this agency which currently serves as a political weapon of Mayor Bass.

The fact that Karen Bass dropped her “climate plan” for Los Angeles days before she reaffirmed her commitment to killing local transit oriented development is a sick joke.

LA's proposed SB 79 standards have dropped...

For 1/2 mile from a T2 transit stop, they allow 10 units with 2 FAR, with max height of 2 stories.

It's physically impossible to fit 2 FAR in 2 stories.
In fact, with setbacks, it's impossible to fit 2 FAR in 3 stories!

Floor Area Ratio.

Attempt to measure the amount of usable space available in a building vs the size of the lot.

Press releases | Riese & Müller

“Riese & Müller…will cease its business activities in the United States as of July 31, 2026…Key factors include the persistently challenging and increasingly volatile market conditions in the United States.” 😞

www.r-m.de/en-us/press/...

At the foamer holy grail in Chongqing, China.

Allison Arieff writes in the Chron about the National Single Stair Design Competition from LCI and @eastbayforeveryone.bsky.social ahead of Wednesday’s Assembly Housing committee hearing on AB 2252 (Alex Lee).

www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/arti...

Oakland's landlords weren't paying their business taxes. Once the City started pursuing what was owed, rental business tax doubled from the previous year, over tripled the year before that. Pretty wild how they are constantly whining at city hall about deadbeat tenants

I’m generally in favor of “public options” for almost everything but the moral hazard here is insane. If it worked anything like the FAIR plan did it would bankrupt the state. Unfortunately the political pressure to keep rates artificially low is too high.

Interesting bit from a speech Cory Booker gave yesterday at the Michigan Democratic Women's Caucus in Detroit: (Full speech here: www.c-span.org/program/camp...)

car-free telegraph street takeovers still kicking 4 years later

The Inside Story of Five Days That Remade the Supreme Court

If you are as infuriated as you read this as I am, know that Congress not only has the power to fix the abuse of the Shadow Docket but also that the legislation is already drafted. We just need to get it to the floor. www.nytimes.com/2026/04/18/u...

I check local rental listings.

2bd/1ba advertised at $2,750 was last leased in 2023 for $3,100. That's a compound annual decline of -4% per year. $3,100 2023 dollars is about $3,400 today.

It’s all well and good for tech leaders to endorse UBI. But it feels convenient to only focus on a distant political prospect. The GOP, right now, is doing reverse-UBI (work requirements on SNAP). It’d be nice to hear more objections to that.

Update: www.gridstatus.io/insights/414...

Senator Wiener Introduces Bill to Streamline Clean Energy Permitting Official website of Senator Scott Wiener, representing California Senate District 11.

Sen. @scottwiener.bsky.social has proposed a bill that would ease permitting for clean energy projects in California. It is good & very much needed & a bunch of environmental groups are opposing it. Absolutely fucking infuriating. I'm always trying to defend these groups & then they do this shit.

💀

Prague just opened the new Dvorecký Bridge. It's exclusively for trams, buses, bikes, and pedestrians. Private cars are completely banned.

New residential buildings in Gowanus. Source: https://www.crainsnewyork.com/real-estate/boom-times-continue-major-new-gowanus-projects/

Upzonings in New York City produced substantial increases in housing supply. Source: https://www.urban.org/research/publication/how-big-upzonings-affect-housing-supply

When NYC rezoned Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood to allow high-density residential uses along a cleaned-out canal, it hoped to attract thousands of new housing units.

That's exactly what it got, new research comparing upzoned areas to similar, non-upzoned areas shows: www.urban.org/research/pub...

Macmind at work

A complete transformer neural network implemented entirely in HyperTalk, trained on a Macintosh SE/30.

github.com/SeanFDZ/macm...