City Observatory
@cityobservatory.bsky.social
Original research and commentary on what matters for city success.
My Cancellable Urbanist Take is that you actually can do this; you just have to build freeways that don't suck.
Push The Needle@pushtheneedle.bsky.social · 4d agoI don’t think city planners and architects understand cities at all if they can illustrate this type of graphic without asking the question of why that space isn’t used? Freeways are loud, unpleasant gashes in cities and the only way to create this level of vibrancy is to remove them
Princeton, McGill and Penn have all denied tenure to women who went on to win a Nobel Prize. It says quite a bit about tenure standards, and the treatment of women in academia. MAGA thinks that DEI gives them an unfair advantage. And that's farcical. www.forbes.com/sites/conorm...
Researcher Demoted By University Of Pennsylvania Wins Nobel Prize For mRNA Discoveries—And Some Academics Urge Penn To Apologize
Katalin Karikó’s research laid the foundation for both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna Covid-19 vaccines.
forbes.com
New open-access paper: Direct File showed that govt could build its own user-centered platform without relying on contractors. But the product was killed after a DOGE lead spoke with the private tax preparation industry lobbying against a private option. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
To figure out how many vehicles Americans actually want, and what types of vehicles, we should abolish minimum parking mandate nationwide. Because we lack a free market for automobile storage, we cannot determine what Americans would freely choose.
The mobility of children is simply not taken seriously or viewed as important. Something illustrative is how people will often say that kids "don't count" when you remind them that children and young teens are nondrivers who deserve the right to get around without cars.
Tom Flood@tomflood.bsky.social · 7d ago
The Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Sucks . . . Sucks up all the money The largely un-funded $3.5 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Project will suck up all of the available revenue for transportation...
The Rose Quarter Freeway Widening Sucks . . . Sucks up all the money
The largely un-funded $3.5 billion I-5 Rose Quarter Project will suck up all of the available revenue for transportation improvements in Portland, likely for decades to come. If there's some...
cityobservatory.org
One implication of "permitting reform" that transportation folks should be aware of: The bill eliminates environmental review entirely for repair or replacement projects in the "immediate vicinity" of existing infrastructure that do not increase capacity by >20%. www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cach...
Unfunded inclusionary zoning mandates are ineffective, part 999: Philly's mandatory overlay zones haven't produced meaningfully more affordable units than the rest of the city, while decimating what should be a development hotspot and largely directing to outer areas www.phila.gov/media/202608...
#NOon45 CEQA was created when new highways and highway expansion were destroying communities. Prop 45 would roll out the red carpet for just the type of projects that we created CEQA to prevent. cal.streetsblog.org/2026/10/02/s...
Streetsblog Endorsement: No on Prop. 45 - Streetsblog California
CEQA was enacted at a time when new highways and highway expansion was destroying communities, and a big part of the reason to create CEQA in the first place. Prop 45 would roll out the red carpet for...
cal.streetsblog.org
Permit timeline on SFH: 100 days Permit timeline for townhomes: 400 days MHA fees on SFHs: $0 MHA fees on townhomes: $40,000 each Cost of a new SFH: $1,800,000 Cost of a new townhome: $750,000 Seattle is so equitable
New York City has recorded the fewest murders through September since before 1960, Baltimore since 1962, Philadelphia and Detroit since 1964, Oakland since 1967, and New Orleans since 1969.
not only are US escalators slower, but they are way more expensive - and fail or are out of order at much higher rates than other countries
Joe Cohen@cohenhouse.bsky.social · 3w agoAnother dumb American code requirement! basin.la/articles/nin...
People mistakenly believe that unfunded inclusionary zoning is a way to tax developers and rich people to fund subsidized housing for the poor. It is not. In reality, it’s a tax on working and middle class renters. Actual rich people, who overwhelmingly own single family homes, pay nothing at all.
Joe Fish@sadbusdriver.bsky.social · 2w agoit's a tax on builders and middle class renters to fund subsidized units for lower income renters. if you're a rich household you do not bare any of the costs od IZ. even if you like inclusionary zoning, it's regressive compared to say, taxing property/income directly to fund housing subsidies.
How much did overall fuel costs change from 2025 to 2026? It really depends on the state. Drivers in Oregon & Washington are spending <$40 *more* per month. Drivers in New Mexico & Wyoming are spending >$100 *more* per month. That's because of a combination of gas prices & driving distances.
You tax things you want less of. It’s why they tax cigarettes. To make it too expensive to bother with that bad habit It is a disgrace this logical fallacy is applied to housing. If you believe in IZ you don’t actually want more housing, you just want certain housing, which prevents other housing
Max Dubler 🏳️🌈@maxdubler.com · 2w agoSo-called “inclusionary zoning,” the practice of requiring home builders to rent new apartments at a loss to low-income tenants, is a tax on new housing that worsens the housing shortage and raises rents overall in exchange for a handful of means-tested units. It’s bad policy!
NYC’s congestion pricing program cut ambulance travel times by over a minute
Note to Seattle policymakers who want to expand MHA: The most rigorous study ever done on IZ found that the typical program in CA reduces homebuilding by nearly one third. And all renters pay the price in higher rents caused by the worsened shortage. Unfunded IZ is a regressive policy.
bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com
Some WSJ headline writer is apparently tired of tenants winning, but the reporting is fine: Haddox’s new place didn’t require months of paperwork or administrative bottlenecks. She applied and moved within a week. “This was way easier because the market had gone down.” www.wsj.com/real-estate/...
Portland Real Estate Is Such a Mess That All Housing Is Affordable Housing
Rarely has the Oregon city seen such a narrow price gap between market-rate and affordable units.
wsj.com
No one who goes to Paris, Amsterdam, Tokyo, or even Disneyland ever walks around and thinks, "You know what would make this place better and more pleasant? Robot cars."
ODOT admits its climate strategy is failing, tries to shift blame For years, its been obvious that the Oregon Department of Transportation's greenhouse gas reduction strategy--which hinges on a 20 percent reduction in per capita...
ODOT admits its climate strategy is failing, tries to shift blame
For years, its been obvious that the Oregon Department of Transportation's greenhouse gas reduction strategy--which hinges on a 20 percent reduction in per capita driving--was an epic failure. New reports...
cityobservatory.org
Oregon isn’t on track to meet transportation emissions goals, forecast shows • Oregon Capital Chronicle oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/09/16/o...
Oregon isn’t on track to meet transportation emissions goals, forecast shows • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon has lost much of the progress it had made toward its transportation greenhouse gas emissions goal, according to a new forecast.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com
ODOT finally admits its not on track to meet climate goals, but falsely blames others, not its own failing policies, including wasting billions to expand highways. oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/09/16/o... cityobservatory.org/wrong-way-od...
Oregon isn’t on track to meet transportation emissions goals, forecast shows • Oregon Capital Chronicle
Oregon has lost much of the progress it had made toward its transportation greenhouse gas emissions goal, according to a new forecast.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com
Oregon is worst for funding road maintenance, and has 2 of the 3 most expensive highway expansion projects in the nation. Hardly a coincidence. cityobservatory.org/bankrupt-a-3... oregoncapitalchronicle.com/2026/09/18/o...
Oregon has one of the nation’s largest funding gaps to meet road maintenance needs • Oregon Capital Chronicle
The Beaver State has the second highest gap-to-expenditure ratio in the country, behind New York and tied with Connecticut.
oregoncapitalchronicle.com
At its core, AI is about theft. www.404media.co/doom-loop-op...
‘Doom Loop’: OpenAI and Microsoft Admits LLMs Are Destroying the Web and Built on Theft
"Millions of people around the world will soon consider large models ‘hoovering up’ all their work to be an astonishing theft of unprecedented proportions."
404media.co
Carmageddon does a no-show in Portland. Closing the I-5 freeway increased AM peak hour travel times about five minutes compared to normal conditions. cityobservatory.org/wheres-my-ca...
Testimony of Joe Cortright Oregon Senate Committee on Commerce and General Government September 8, 2026 Thank you, Chair Meek. Vice-Chair Drazen, and members. I really appreciate you...
Testimony of Joe Cortright Oregon Senate Committee on Commerce and General Government September 8, 2026 Thank you, Chair Meek. Vice-Chair Drazen, and members. I really appreciate you accommodating...
cityobservatory.org
Where's my Carmaggedon, Day 4. Thursday morning commute from Vancouver to Portland is 31 minutes, about 5 minutes longer than the pre-shutdown travel time, according to Google Maps. That's well within the typical range of morning commute times (20-40 minutes). cityobservatory.org/carmageddoni...
