The FPEs did it the way I thought it should be done for the MN study, and came to the conclusion that seven stories and 6,000 sq. ft. per floor puts fewer people at risk in case of catastrophic failures than a big double-loaded corridor building www.dli.mn.gov/sites/defaul...

High-End Construction Really Does Help Everyone A new rung at the top of the housing ladder permits people lower down to climb up.

new from me: a story about VACANCY CHAINS, the idea that underlies the argument that more housing is good even if you can't afford it www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

easy slogan for the next democratic presidential candidate is “i will reform the corrupt supreme court and repeal citizens united”

Opinion | Affordability and the ‘Epstein Class’ Will Define American Politics

“When Citizens United was decided in 2010, billionaires had spent $18 million on the 2000 election, $13M 2004 and $16M in 2008. Then came the deluge. In 2012 it was $231M, and nearly doubled again in next three election cycles —to $682M in 2016, $1.2 billion in 2020 and $2.6 billion in 2024.” Gift:

FDA declines to review Moderna's mRNA flu shot Under Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration has taken an aggressive stance against mRNA technology.

I genuinely cannot believe the degree to which we are pissing away this generational breakthrough, even given the fuckmuppets who are involved www.nbcnews.com/health/healt...

graph shows more DOGE contract cuts in blue states

We saw this pattern in infrastructure cuts during the shutdown, cuts alleging social services fraud, cuts to contractors under DOGE: all targeted to blue states. It is an obviously partisan abuse of power, brazen and on a scale we simply have not seen before. donmoynihan.substack.com/p/a-year-on-...

BREAKING: Madman President Promotes Racist Video of the Obamas as Apes Trump’s policies and actions are fueled by explicit racism and election denial. The Obama-ape video encompasses both.

“It does not get much more textbook-example racist than gleefully depicting two Black people – one of whom is a former US president who Trump routinely says he wants to jail for fake reasons – as apes or monkeys.”

Anyone w pulse in media/politics should be questioning his health/mental capacity.

Also in Playbook: Council Speaker Julie Menin will announce at today's ABNY breakfast that the Council will make the Big Apple's outdoor dining program year-round again.

Menin's team says the most likely path is passing
@cmrestler.bsky.social's 2025 bill. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

The Most Boring Idea That Somehow Became Dangerous You should be able to get to the things you need — groceries, school, a park, a doctor, maybe a bar — within a short walk or bike ride. That’s it. No force fields. No checkpoints. No microchips. Ju…

A perfectly ordinary idea in urban planning — being able to walk to everyday places — has been twisted into something that sounds dystopian.

This isn’t about conspiracies. It’s about how we talk about cities, trust, and freedom.

jwp.news/the-most-bor...

Why do people agree to on the record interviews with Isaac Chotiner? He’s very good, and his subjects alway (always) look horrible. Either he has some mysterious distortion fields or people think they can win here.

BREAKING: You aren’t better than @ichotiner.bsky.social

ICE was granted $75 Billion in last year’s Big Bullshit Bill. Yes, billion, with a B! The current funding bill would provide ADDITIONAL discretionary funding for this agency that they don’t need. How are Republicans not being pinned down and forced to answer what these funds would actually fund? 🤷‍♂️

The City’s Budget is our future. And you deserve to know how it works.

this is a straightforward impeachable offense for trump, vance, rubio and every other person down the line who enabled it and the framers would have thought impeachment for it did not go nearly far enough

It is wild to me that a military incursion to steal another country’s resources so the president can have a personal slush fund in Qatar is like the 5th most scandalous thing currently happening.

An entire community of thousands, here legally, having been demonized with deranged lies about eating pets, is about to be arbitrarily DECLARED illegal so they can be forcibly ethnically cleansed. I don’t want to hear one more fucking word about comparisons to Nazi Germany being overwrought.

I will simply never recover from reading this sentence:

"Since Georgia implemented work requirements in 2020, they have spent twice as much on Deloitte consultants and administrative costs as on healthcare for people."

The Bollard - Typology City Massive pieces of rock, concrete, steel, or other durable materials deployed to demarcate pedestrian zones, secure perimeters, and intercept vehicles.

We’ve identified four subspecies. Yes, subspecies.

And no, this isn't satire. It’s taxonomy.

typology.city/type/control...

The Bollard - Typology City Massive pieces of rock, concrete, steel, or other durable materials deployed to demarcate pedestrian zones, secure perimeters, and intercept vehicles.

🚧 WHAT IS A BOLLARD, REALLY?
Is it a planter? A post? A blunt urban force field?

Welcome to the world of Protectus bolus—NYC’s most quietly aggressive street furniture.
🧱Concrete, 🪨granite, 🧯metal, or 🌿planted, these fixtures do more than mark space—they defend it.

Newsletter While we think a great way to keep up is through purchasing issues of our journal, we want to make sure there are other ways to communicate with our readers. Some highlights: Public sector team min…

You can also join my newsletter list, where this article originally lived:

jwp.news/subscribe

A Short Field Guide to Joining a Community Board Community boards aren’t glamorous and they aren’t as powerful as people assume. Apply to join a community board to show up where the leverage is, understanding how decisions actually get shaped, an…

Here's some actionable tips on how you should join a Community Board, and why:

jwp.news/a-short-fiel...

Community boards aren’t glamorous and they aren’t as powerful as people assume. Apply to join a community board to show up where the leverage is, understanding how decisions actually get shaped, and use your position to push for more homes, safer streets, and a city that works for more people.

We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.

“We Are Witnessing the Self-Immolation of a Superpower.”

“With Donald Trump’s actions in Greenland, Minneapolis, and Venezuela, a foreign enemy could not invent a better chain of events to wreck the standing of the United States.”

Via @wired.com and @vermontgmg.bsky.social

Police mistakes happen, and they're big news.

But if you think about a scenario in which US Government is proven to be lying about killing its own people, that would be one of the biggest news stories of the century.

And it's happening.

And it's not being reported as what it is.

I’m old enough to remember when the right wing in the United States insisted that gun rights “trumped” everything else, so having an unused legal gun wasn’t a reason for immigration officers to murder you.

Also, that the reason for those gun rights was to protect from an out-of-control government.

I have spent my entire adult life being lectured by Republican politicians and conservative legal movement types about how important it is to preserve the sacred constitutional right to self-defense of *specifically this person* and then secret police murdered him in the street

Newsletter While we think a great way to keep up is through purchasing issues of our journal, we want to make sure there are other ways to communicate with our readers. Some highlights: Public sector team min…

This comes from our regularly published Newsletter, Journey With Purpose, which you can signup here:

jwp.news/newsletter/

Don’t look ridiculous by using the word “Transplant” Lately, more neighborhood debates are framed around “transplants,” people who moved in later, from somewhere else. The word sounds descriptive, but it quietly does deep harm: it marks outsiders, as…

If you’re interested in urban change, housing, and civic process — without the lazy shortcuts — I wrote this out in full here 👇

jwp.news/dont-look-ri...

People moving in don’t cause displacement: policy failures do.

Historically, every “authentic” neighborhood was once accused of being ruined by newcomers. Cities didn’t succeed despite churn. They succeeded because of it.
If change feels too fast or too unequal, the fix isn’t social gatekeeping. It’s policy: more housing, tenant protections, better services.

Underneath the anger is something real: loss. Familiar routines change. Informal control erodes. That grief deserves acknowledgment, but misdirecting it at people who moved in doesn’t solve anything.