It's very hard to know what the future holds But it's also important to check: "If my reforms win, will they do anything?" It's fine when you're starting to work on messaging bills and half-loaf victories! But your long-run goal has to be SB79 etc. A

Sam@samd.bsky.social · 7d ago

yeah I think it’s very hard to project forward-looking but I also think that by any reasonable BCA, donating to a group like Open New York is infinitely more effective at getting housing built than traditional NPIC groups, particularly since many of those groups are NIMBY so there is no benefit

CG's surrogate endpoint for social BCA on housing advocacy is indeed the expected # of housing units unlocked in metros with the biggest "Glaeser Wedge" estimates A naive approach to this would indeed be naive. But I will write before YIMBYTown on what the non-naive approach looks like!

Ned Resnikoff@resnikoff.bsky.social · 2w ago

One example of the latter is I've heard EA-brained donors ask YIMBY orgs, "If I give X amount to your organization, how many additional units of housing will get built in the next decade?" Not! How! Advocacy! Works!

❗New Article❗ The Great American Property Tax Freakout! Since 2024, many states have radically reshaped their property tax systems.The changes are an example of a national trend of carving out influential groups from taxation, in this case a majority group: homeowners papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

New AGF blog: Transit-Oriented Development is a surprisingly underrated way to end America’s housing problems Physically realistic capacity near rail alone is >30M homes. Financially plausible capacity is ~6M to 13M. TOD is not just a boutique or niche idea! open.substack.com/pub/abundanc...

Transit-Oriented Development is a surprisingly underrated path to ending America’s housing problems

America’s rail systems are still recovering from 2020, and robot cars are coming. Legalize apartments first.

open.substack.com

Great article in @nyc.streetsblog.org on using land value taxes to fund the IBX. Check out the full report @aarmlovi.bsky.social and I wrote on the value capture mechanism and how much it could raise ($1-3+ billion) here as well: www.niskanencenter.org/new-york-sta...

Award-Winning Reporter Dave Colon@davecolon.bsky.social · 2mo ago

One weird trick to fund the Interborough Express nyc.streetsblog.org/2026/08/04/b...

If a hot person sends you this meme does that mean they like you or

Sacramento is also *the* poster child for the power of direct state zoning: The city simply accepted the state-authored SB79 code! No huge planning staff time, little implementation capacity needed. One of way to solve the local implementation capacity problem is to just *write the code for them*

M. Nolan Gray 🥑@mnolangray.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Thanks to a pro-growth local culture and advocacy by YIMBY groups like @sacyimby.bsky.social, California's last great middle-class metropolis will not be going down the inequality-and-stagnation doom loop of the coast. www.bizjournals.com/sacramento/n...

It's unusual for me to find a politician that's more YIMBY than I am, but Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek's administration is proposing to essentially replace local zoning on most parcels in the state with the last 4 pages of this document www.oregon.gov/lcd/LAR/Docu...

There was a planning panic over retail banks taking up urban storefronts in the 2010s. Cities started banning them, and Capital One responded by putting cafés in their locations, beginning in Boston in 2014. I learned this from @aarmlovi.bsky.social

How much housing is located near the nation's transit? 45% of units are located within a 1/2 mile of bus or rail. But only 10% is near frequent service... and 6% is near a rail station. Our new data tool @urbaninstitute.bsky.social allows you to investigate in detail! www.urban.org/data-tools/h...

One part of Single Stair's unbelievably fast success since 2021 is that it re-legalizes everyone's favorite old buildings. New "break-up-the-massing" double loaded buildings so often try to emulate them with fake facade divisions and other visual deception But we can just legalize the real thing

Protect Bridgeport Bicyclists@stevevance.net · 4mo ago

Q: why does single stair matter to Chicagoans? - bring down building costs - build more homes

Was this bill specifically written for @aarmlovi.bsky.social?

Jon Cooper@joncooper-us.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New York residents would soon be able to hang small solar panels from their windows or balconies under a measure headed for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s desk. 🌞

When I started wearing Uniqlo socks as color accents with Chacos & Tevas with flannels or other "LL Bean Boyfriend" outfits, I got a mix of side-eye & compliments Now I'm a pioneer

E24-24, my proposal to raise the IBC’s single-stair apartment building height limit from three stories to four, has passed the final membership vote, and will now officially make it into the 2027 IBC 🎉

I am suddenly struck by the conviction that a contemporary dance mix of this song would absolutely rip We are overdue for a Hot 90s Summer youtu.be/4QwZi9-7i5s?...

I Want You

YouTube video by Savage Garden - Topic

youtu.be

The LVT was authorized under Cuomo, but it's never been used. Very few people wrote about it before @aarmlovi.bsky.social's article for @vitalcitynyc.bsky.social, with one exception: Then-Assemblymember @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social praised value capture and § 119-r in a Jacobin interview in 2022:

Reed Schwartz@reed-schwartz.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New York State just authorized a land value tax that could generate billions of dollars for new transit. For the @niskanencenter.bsky.social, @aarmlovi.bsky.social and I wrote about how the renewal of § 119-r in the FY27 budget could unlock a virtuous cycle of infrastructure delivery in NYC.

New York State just authorized a land value tax that could generate billions of dollars for new transit. For the @niskanencenter.bsky.social, @aarmlovi.bsky.social and I wrote about how the renewal of § 119-r in the FY27 budget could unlock a virtuous cycle of infrastructure delivery in NYC.

Mayor Mamdani's housing plan is live! There's big sweeping YIMBY stuff: -Aggressive TOD upzoning -Major permitting reform -Rescuing & transforming NYCHA They're also looking at finer details, like fixing the FDNY inspections that so often delay CofO issuance (& invite petty corruption)

Stephen Jacob Smith@stephenjacobsmith.com · 4mo ago

Mayor Mamdani has announced the Affordable & Efficient Code Reform task force, to convene later this year. The housing plan says that among other things, elevator and plumbing reform will be considered. www.nyc.gov/content/dam/... (pgs. 98-99)

New movement & negotiations on the federal housing bill this afternoon... x.com/i/status/205...

What an excellent editorial building on the academic urban economics literature to translate for the general public. Kudos @maragay.bsky.social & the whole NYT board

Jonathan Berk 🏠@berkie1.bsky.social · 4mo ago

"Americans are rightly frustrated about the high cost of housing. Fortunately, the country has decades of evidence about how to bring down those costs: We need to build more homes." - @nytimes.com Editorial Board www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Not yet a *deal* on federal housing bill, but a bipartisan House response to the Senate version! It includes fixes to the Build To Rent ban and avoids eliminating key bipartisan provisions like the Build Now Act We will see what the Senate response is but it's a provisional sign ROAD is back!

Michael McLean@michaelmclean.me · 5mo ago

Federal housing deal seems to be reached, with fixes to allow “build to rent” housing via @aarmlovi.bsky.social punchbowl.news/hr6644_res4_...

New AGF blog: Tokyo is the world's most affordable megacity--and they're still permitting homes at many times the pace of NYC, London, Paris Yet land prices are still very high! A 1-acre suburban home in Chiyoda would cost over $100M before you nail the first board open.substack.com/pub/abundanc...

Tokyo land is still >$85 million an acre

What will happen to the highest-priced metro housing markets after YIMBYs achieve realistic housing abundance?

open.substack.com

New housing episode with Jamie Rubin! This headline is more negative than the content--we talk about everything the mayor's extremely talented housing team is doing right, too Click for the doombait, stay for the optimism 👇 www.vitalcitynyc.org/alex-armlovi...

The Cost of Freezing the Rent

The limits and distortions of Mamdani’s core housing cost control strategy

vitalcitynyc.org

Housing policy 🤝 climate policy Research from earlier this year shows that legalizing ADUs, allowing TOD, and ending parking mandates create greener cities & towns.

The Most Bipartisan Climate Policy is Housing Policy - California YIMBY

The average American spends 170% more time stuck in traffic today than in 1980, and a new report argues that this is because uncoordinated state and local zoning decisions have made car dependence…

cayimby.org

A lesser known part of the BUILD plan in Illinois is to stop requiring parking for smaller and medium size homes (regardless of transit proximity), adaptive reuse into housing, and ground floor businesses in mixed use developments Read Jonathan’s 🧵 about why doing that matter so much

Jonathan Berk 🏠@berkie1.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Eliminating parking minimums is not about eliminating parking. It's about moving beyond outdated, 1-size-fits-all mandates, originally based on flawed 1900s formulas, that no longer reflect how people live & that drive up the cost of housing in walkable, transit-oriented areas.

┳┻| ┳┻| ┻┳| ┻┳| ┳┻| ┳┻| ┻┳| ┻┳| ┳┻| ┳┻| ┻┳| ┳┻| ┻┳| ┳┻| _ ┻┳| •.•) (Yonah is back) ┳┻|⊂ﾉ ┻┳|

Yonah Freemark@yonahfreemark.com · 5mo ago

When NYC rezoned Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood to allow high-density residential uses along a cleaned-out canal, it hoped to attract thousands of new housing units. That's exactly what it got, new research comparing upzoned areas to similar, non-upzoned areas shows: www.urban.org/research/pub...

This research provides concrete evidence that, as @aarmlovi.bsky.social has argued, large-scale upzonings—enabling very substantial density in areas with high demand—can indeed attract very large amounts of new housing, beyond what we would expect otherwise.

Zoned Capacity Is Like an Artificial Oil Deposit

Why cities can claim they have room for thousands of new homes on paper and still not build them

abundanceandgrowth.org

When NYC rezoned Brooklyn's Gowanus neighborhood to allow high-density residential uses along a cleaned-out canal, it hoped to attract thousands of new housing units. That's exactly what it got, new research comparing upzoned areas to similar, non-upzoned areas shows: www.urban.org/research/pub...

How do upzonings impact housing supply? In brand-new research published today @urbaninstitute.bsky.social, we show that big upzonings in New York City & Philadelphia had large, statistically significant effects on supply & permitting with several years of reforms. www.urban.org/research/pub...

I'm less than a quarter Hungarian but when you do the haircut...