“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment & counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back to a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”
IT SAVES PUBLIC MONEY to house people.
Next frontier in parking reform:
Personal car storage should be economically productive
Today, I'm sitting down with Leila Bozorg and Cea Weaver from my housing team for a live AMA on r/nyc. Bring your questions on affordable housing, tenant protections, and the fight to keep NYC a home for working people. We'll be live at 1:45pm for an hour.
That’s what I call an impressive erection
In this week’s work session, we discussed Item # 40 which I brought forward to expand what’s known as “missing middle” housing in Austin.
Insane data point
Americans (like everyone) want what they are sold. Our desire for bigness isn’t inherent to this continent, it’s a result of our markets. The suburbs are a direct result of a 1933 banking regulation that capped interest rates and funneled trillions into suburban mortgage lending
Facts ⬇️⬇️
If you’re pushing housing in lowrise n’hoods, eliminating useless sideyards is the unlock for the urban design everybody says they want.
In exchange for sideyards that no one uses, you get better units, lush interior courtyards, space for trees and play, higher density and lower energy use.
This war ($1 billion per day) is probably not going to end up costing as much as either California HSR ($128 billion) or Northeast Corridor high-speed rail ($151 billion).
Imagine all the cool, fast trains we could have with the billions we spend on bombs.
Where are you seeing the results?
Rooting hard for Talarico
I've seen enough: James Talarico (D) wins the #TXSEN Dem primary.
How many of those homes are parking lots though
Guess who’s carrying more
The state of our union is unaffordable.
This guy got my vote. Go Single Stair! Go DBZ! Go @nathanfortexas.bsky.social !
Supreme Court judge famously decried apartments as “parasites” while the district judge, who was overruled, warned that zoning would cause societal stratification:
“the result to be accomplished is to classify the population and segregate them according to their income or situation in life.”
🎯
Have you ever looked inside a manhole?
A thread…
Infrastructure going in at our 25 unit CLT in North Austin
Talking missing middle housing in the latest Texas Architect
magazine.texasarchitects.org/2025/12/17/m...
valentine's day isn't just for couples, it's also a day to celebrate love. for instance, i would love it if housing prices came down.
“I think we’ve really outsourced this decision to, honestly, a group of lobbyists, building manufacturers, labor unions,”
www.vox.com/future-perfe...
see also: the US
Required viewing
every single successful general strike in US history has had union backing through the local AFL-CIO
this is the first time it’s been called for since the 1940s
After the revolution we’re gonna have elevators, we’re gonna have single-stack, we’re gonna have triple-pane windows & ten thousand Supreme Court justices
True!
We have a memo here in Austin that give guidance on how three units can be permitted under the IRC, but to my knowledge no one’s used it so far.
That being said I have a stacked triplex in the works with the AHFC, will be running it through permitting later this quarter (fingers crossed).
