"men only want to talk about ancient rome but women only want to talk about the industrial revolution" awww yeah NOW we're gendermaxxing baby

A reason to be bearish about the idea that “reform” of itself will save the permanent civil service. Often, the politicians’ critiques of what’s wrong are inchoate or completely contradictory

Odd to recall that Starmer’s critique of the state has hitherto been that it is too slow, too risk averse, too procedural, too obstructive, too lacking in initiative.. “a cottage industry of blockers and checkers…” “you pull a lever and nothing happens..”

On top of everything else, the level of 'embattled' behaviour going on with senior ministers and their comfort zone of lashing out of their traditional supporters shows the government is both in disarray and denial.

LONDON’S BREXIT? Questions have re-emerged about the size and shape of London after Reform UK suggested that Havering could stage a “Hexit” and Bromley could “Brexit” London.

I love that you can see old Middlesex in the map of attachment to London of London assembly constituencies.
jackshaw.substack.com/p/londons-br...

List of places by physical difficulty of building high-speed rail.

Easy:
Northern Germany
Poland
US Midwest
England
Central Canada
Pakistan

Medium:
France
Spain
US South
China
India
Indonesia
Egypt

Hard:
Japan
Korea
Taiwan
Italy
Vietnam
Mexico
Alps

Cthulhu fhtagn:
Philippines
UK-Ireland
Jeju

This chart has left me trying to guess my own annual egg consumption.
I reckon something like 350 directly but presumably quite a few more as an ingredient in other products? Wouldn’t be surprised by 400 a year.
economist.com/britain/2026...

Screwball spy comedy about an SBU hit squad and GRU hit squad assigned by their respective sides to assassinate the same Donetsk warlord in 2016 and how they constantly trip over each other and get in the way of each other's plots.

Liverpool highlights a key issue for UK cities.

Some of the post-war neighbourhoods with the best accessibility are also the least dense.

These are the places policy needs to target for densification.

Join our launch event to find out how👇
buff.ly/JgzmjBt

Evergreen Americana
www.youtube.com/shorts/uwE63...

Oh I am stealing this.

Need less "why is the north of england poor" discourse, and more "why are large german cities so unproductive" discourse

ec.europa.eu/eurostat/sta...

A Russian woman from Tuapse no longer likes living there. She says some drones are bothering her.

How Much Community Outreach Does the Urban Institute Think Italy and Turkey Do? The Urban Institute just published a brief about community outreach for public transportation construction projects. The authors are Yonah Freemark, Gabe Samuels, and Christina Plerhoples Stacy; I …

Pedestrian Observations: How Much Community Outreach Does the Urban Institute Think Italy and Turkey Do? pedestrianobservations.com/2026/04/20/h...

How Much Community Outreach Does the Urban Institute Think Italy and Turkey Do? The Urban Institute just published a brief about community outreach for public transportation construction projects. The authors are Yonah Freemark, Gabe Samuels, and Christina Plerhoples Stacy; I …

Good post by @alonlevy.bsky.social in the UK context I also see an issue that this process bloat happens when there are legitimacy questions. UK's low turnout, low vote share government doesn't have legitimacy, so it outsources it.
pedestrianobservations.com/2026/04/20/h...

Yup the longer term danger is the MHP. Its ideology works after secularisation.

Thoroughly wrong. Turkey is secularizing at fast speeds. The AKP will have been the ikhwanis high point. The forces of demographic change, now hitting even Kurds, mass urbanization and modern society are at work there to.

One of the anecdotal facts that I use to support my claim that Italy is a "Country of Cities" in a way France isn't is the fact that the modal name of the level of government that roughly corresponds to "counties" is:

ITA: Province of _Major City Name_
FR: River or topographical feature Name

Honestly, it's the "who with?" that is the most damning indictment of the state of the party. You're a party with 400 MPs and you implicitly think none of them are fit for PM? Not a great message. Above anything, it just shows a paucity of imagination.

I think this is right, and also an underplayed reason for his success.

For all his gestures to the far right, Farage remains a creature of 90s Euroscepticism, just about able to cling to old Tory traditions and remain within the accepted bounds of British political culture. Restore...isn't that.

Unfunded IZ presupposes a permenant housing shortage: the moment rents fall too low to cross-subsidize the unfunded mandate, development stops until rents rise again. It's housing policy pseudoscience.

Since I’m preaching to the urbanist choir and we’re all anti-unfunded IZ, I’ll take this a step forward: funded IZ does too, it just changes the consequence – instead of destroying production, it destroys your city budget. We got a hint of this with NYC’s CityFHEPS voucher program

"These decadent Empires are doomed, that's why our parents moved here and I refuse to learn non-English languages, anybody who questions my hypocrisy is a racist Imperialist"
Also the idea that the US is a "dying Empire" when still an insanely large and rich country is absurd.

Some exciting personal news - I’ve joined @yimbyalliance.org as Policy Lead. After a few years out of housing I am BACK in the game! Very excited to be getting involved again in the fight for better, more affordable housing 🏘️

But for $600-700 you could just book into a lounge, do some work or some reading and get a drink for free and still be better off.

That is precisely why the UK is so uncomfortable. The state through Barnett-Sewell-FPTP says there are tiers of citizenship, with Celts on top, provincial english below them, urban S.England below them, immigrants below them.
It then says British is nation in England, multi-nation in Celtic fringe

1/2
For those interested in what Japan's recent economic history may tell us about other economies that copied its growth model, it's worth noting that in Japan, the term “excess competition” (過当競争, katō kyōsō) emerged, mostly in the 1960s, to express what was seen at the time as an urgent problem.

i was promised substantially more eternal night and rain in my cyberpunk dystopia. why do you think i stocked up on all these trenchcoats

British large cities are not dense - Centre for Cities Why Britain’s big cities need denser urban cores to boost productivity, transport and local economic growth.

Manchester has a similar population to Kyiv, Rome and Warsaw within 20km.

But within 5km it is much smaller.

Looking only at total population misses what matters most for agglomeration: density close to the centre👇

Because the reality is that there isn’t now, and there shouldn’t be, a civil service process that can stop the elected government making ill-advised or actively dangerous appointments. One reason why I am a longtime supporter of electoral reform is that I think “the government of the day has to get its appointees through at least one coalition partner” is a good and democratic brake on what the executive wants to do.

like this from @stephenkb.bsky.social. frustrating that the conversation has turned to who-saw-what-when, which distracts from Starmer's error of judgement