It's good to seek out expert opinions, but in this case, the person consulted doesn't appear to be familiar with the research. This statement is uninformed conjecture. Sports venues DO NOT increase the value of the tax base. At best, it's an intrajurisdictional reallocation.
A related problem: We've reduced transpo planning to making lists of things that transpo engineers will be doing.
Induced demand is a PLANNING issue. We need real transportation plans, that seek to accomplish multiple societal goals, relate to land use, and aren't necessarily crafted by engineers.
In other words, exactly what Paul Volker was aiming for.
DC's strict solar-rights laws have predictably been weaponized to prevent taller housing, e.g. the 9-story bldg proposed for this vacant lot.
I'm developing a surface parking lot right now; it won't get a solar canopy b/c future ADUs above it would have a much greater carbon impact.
City of Industry: Portland, Oregon--Number one large metro in new manufacturing firms
Portland leads the nation's metro areas in the growth of new local manufacturing firms Over the past five years, Portland has added 250 more new manufacturing...
9/9 Transparency matters. Legislators and the public deserve to see the Investment Grade Analysis before committing to a $15 billion project—not after the ink is dry. ✍️⚖️ #BridgeWatch #Oregon #Washington cityobservatory.org/high_cost_of...
8/9 It’s the "Robert Moses strategy": say anything to get the project started, then stick the public with the bill once it's too late to turn back. They want an irrevocable commitment before the bad news drops in 2027.
7/9 Four red flags for IBR revenue:
📍 Traffic is 127k/day (not the 142k claimed)
📍 Population growth has slowed
📍 Remote work has dented commuter volume
📍 High interest rates mean we can borrow less against future tolls
6/9 Banks and the feds require an IGA because they don’t trust state highway department forecasts, which are notoriously over-optimistic. In 2013, the CRC's IGA cut traffic projections in half and nearly doubled the minimum toll.
5/9 The delay is strategic. IBR staff likely have draft results showing toll revenues will fall short of the promised $1.25B. Hitting that target would require toll rates far higher than what’s been advertised to the public
4/9 Remember the cost estimate? Officials promised updates for two years, then waited until after the 2026 legislative sessions adjourned to reveal the price tag had doubled—from $7.5B to a staggering $15B
3/9 According to their own Dec 2024 schedule, key traffic and revenue forecasting milestones were due in Oct 2025. They are now 6 months overdue with no completion date in sight. We’ve seen this playbook before.
2/9 IBR officials told OR and WA legislators that the "Investment Grade Analysis" (IGA)—the rigorous, independent estimate of future toll revenue—is delayed by over a year, now pushed to June 2027. 🛑
1/9 🧵 The Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) project is hiding its toll revenue study. Why? Because the data likely shows tolls will have to be much higher while providing less revenue for this now $15 billion project. #Portland #Transportation cityobservatory.org/high_cost_of...
Manhattan's West Village is the poster child for how historically preserving the buildings in high-demand neighborhoods eventually displaces all but the richest people.
Case in point: a mansion created from two adjacent Bank Street townhomes will sell for more than SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS.
Socialized housing, but only if you are a car.
The S-trap shown in this public messaging banner is illegal in Canada. The requirements making it illegal are literally costing Vancouver alone millions in new construction!
How Should Portland Pay for Streets? www.strongtowns.org/journal/2026... via @strongtowns.org and @cityobservatory.bsky.social
It’s also weird that we’re all having to pretend that any of this matters. The revenues are terrible, Large Language Models are yet to provide any meaningful productivity improvements, and the only reason that they’ve been able to get as far as they have is a compliant media and a venture capital environment borne of a lack of anything else to invest in. Coding LLMs are popular only because of their massive subsidies and corporate encouragement, and in the end will be seen as a useful-yet-incremental and way too expensive way to make the easy things easier and the harder things harder, all while filling codebases full of masses of unintentional, bloated code. If everybody was forced to pay their actual costs for LLM coding, I do not believe for a second that we’d have anywhere near the amount of mewling, submissive and desperate press around these models. The AI bubble has every big, flashing warning sign you could ask for. Every company loses money. Seemingly every AI data center is behind schedule, and the vast majority of them aren’t even under construction. OpenAI’s CFO does not believe that it’s ready to go public in 2026, and Sam Altman’s reaction has been to have her report to somebody else other than him, the CEO. Both OpenAI and Anthropic’s margins are worse than they projected. Every AI startup has to raise hundreds of millions of dollars, and their products are so weak that they can only make millions of dollars of revenue after subsidizing the underlying cost of goods to the point of mass unprofitability. And it’s really weird that the mainstream media has a diametric view — that all of this is totally permissible under the auspices of hypergrowth, that these companies will simply grow larger, that they will somehow become profitable in a way that nobody can actually describe, that demand for AI data centers will exist despite there being no signs of that happening.
It's weird that we're all having to pretend that any of this matters. The revenues are terrible, LLMs are yet to provide any truly measurable productivity improvements, and without selling software at a massive discount, AI would barely have any customers.
www.wheresyoured.at/ai-is-really-weird/
DEFEET drive everywhere for everything every time the guiding principle in city design ROVÉLO CREATIVE
quick reference.
Trend in average number of cars per household. City of Paris shown in light blue; Paris metropolis overall in middle blue; Paris metropolis outside of Paris in dark blue.
Trend in gas sales in Paris and the near suburbs, in thousands of tons.
Gas stations in Paris metropolis. Light blue dots show stations that were open in 2024. Dark blue dots show stations that closed between 2019 and 2024.
Paris metropolis: Striking reductions in car use due to proactive efforts to encourage bike, walking, transit:
—Less car ownership: From 0.5 cars/HH in Paris to 0.36, 1999–2022. Outside of Paris: 0.88➡️0.8
—35% less gas sold 2005–24
—15% fewer gas stations between 2019–24
www.apur.org/sites/defaul...
My challenge to the cottage industry of economic impact consultants. If you want me to take forward-looking economic impact projections seriously, provide at least *one* example of a forecast that projected correctly. I'm not aware of a single projection that turned out to be correct.
Ballparks hosting MLB-affiliated minor league franchises in 2025 have received ~$7 billion in public subsidies for construction and renovation. It's a problem because the ballparks do not generate sufficient economic returns to cover their costs.
The idea that there is some unsettled debate as to whether or not stadiums can be good public investments is idiotic. 50 years of research that confirms the theoretical reasons why no one should expect them to work has settled the question. Stop being obtuse. Enough.
Did OregonDOT submit the new $15 billion estimate of the cost of the Interstate Bridge Replacement Project via text message? That's what this message seems to be warning about:
This isn't $177 million over budget: It's more than $500 million over budget. ODOT purposely left out the fact that their original "cost to complete" report said it would cost $250 million, and the total price tag is now over $815 million. cityobservatory.org/reign_of_err...
As usual, this is a massive understatement. The project was supposed to be done last year (2025) and won't be done before 2028. The original cost estimate was $250 million, and now is over $815 million. ODOT always mis-represents delays and cost overruns. cityobservatory.org/abernethy-ac...
“The new targets will actually drive diesel prices higher, according to the EPA’s own analysis…it will cost about $20 billion over the two years that it’s in effect…rather than having any environmental benefits, it will actually drive deforestation & increased emissions of heat-trapping CO2.”
In effect, Portland has social housing, but only if you are a car. We need to insist that the cars that use street pay, and not add to the cost of housing. How should Portland pay for streets? – City Observatory share.google/Eh0fMe2QybLM...
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