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Sean Aubin

@seanny123.bsky.social

Posts about Toronto Housing almost exclusively, because I haven't figured out how to present other aspects of my life publicly.

531 Posts100 Follower204 Folgt
More Neighbours Toronto@moreneighboursto.bsky.social · yesterday

This building was made possible by the Avenues Policy that Toronto passed in Feb 2025. Although this section of King was technically still low-rise Neighbourhood because of delays in policy implementation, it was identified as a new Avenue for mid-rise development.

Map of Toronto with existing and new Avenues areas highlighted in brown and magenta, respectively.Land Use The proposed development is located along King Street West which is identified in the Official Plan as an Avenue, where growth and intensification should be directed. The proposed development also introduces at grade retail to activate the ground floor and facilitate sustainable and complete communities through streetscape improvements and a private open space that will be publicly accessible to the public. The proposal supports a balance of diverse residential, commercial and institutional uses consistent with the Mixed Use Areas designation. The temple replaces the existing temple that is currently on site, which is strongly supported by the Tibetan community. The application further proposes a new private daycare, which meets an identified need in the community. The proposed units, including the rental replacement units, support a range and mix of housing that is consistent with the Official Plan and the Growing Up Guidelines. The proposed land use is appropriate.
zac@10amlunch.bsky.social · 2d ago

i love this building that just got approved by the toronto government to start development thats an 11 story residential apartment building with retail space on the ground floor, with a buddhist temple on the very top

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2d ago

New entrant Vikram Handa also has a platform! I disagree with the housing and transit components, but it does exist! www.vik4ontario.ca/issues-2

Issues — vik4ontario.ca

Vikram Handa is a housing advocate, democratic socialist, and leadership candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party. His work as a housing leader and social impact executive has given him a first-hand lo...

vik4ontario.ca

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Increasingly annoyed by the OLP leadership emails I'm getting. There's no policies or acknowledgement of trade-offs?!? I thought I was in a policy safe-space. What's with all the vague competence signalling?

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 4d ago

Lauren is correct, but also calling "third spaces" "revolutionary" is funny to me because: The Toronto PATH is basically free public indoor space with chairs, tables and public washrooms and I've used it to host discussions on Land Value Return... which is the most milquetoast revolution

lauren@lauren.rotatingsandwiches.com · 4d ago

yeah we gotta just ban the short form video platforms if they exist to blenderize loosely understood concepts from sociology and history into conspiracy-brained rants about how starbucks exists to neuter the revolutionary class

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2w ago

At family's cabin with 6 children ranging between 5 and 11, they are all gathered around an Disney proprietary audio player listening to the audiobook version of Zootopia. Like its the 1920s again?!?

Colleen @cbailey6.bsky.social · 3w ago

Shadow policies still being used to reduce supportive housing in Toronto. Housing is not this Council's priority. Claiming that you're keeping supportive housing "on track" after you got a motion moved to shove it off track is disappointing stuff from Deputy Mayor Malik. mailchi.mp/toronto/safe...

Throughout this process, my priority has been to ensure your voices are heard. My team and I attended the spring pop-ups event, the public meeting at Fort York, as well as having many conversations at neighbourhood events, to hear your feedback and questions. You can also learn more about the process with this update from the public engagement facilitator, Third Party Public. While there is clear support for affordable housing in our neighbourhood, you shared understandable concerns regarding density, shadow impacts and local infrastructure that I believe require further engagement. At the City’s Planning and Housing Committee meeting this week on this item, I moved amendments that I worked on with CreateTO and City planning staff to respond to these concerns with seriousness: Keeping supportive housing on track - City staff have the direction and assurance to keep progressing and advocating for support to the federal government to advance Building A this year. This building will provide 81 units of much-needed supportive housing, for low-needs clients. Improving the site with deepened work and community engagement - For Building B, the one that is closer to Strachan, City staff are directed to report back to Committee in Q1 of 2027 with more work and deepened engagement with the local community and to improve the site to be more responsive to community feedback, while the City continues to identify funding sources for this portion of the project.
Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 3w ago

Biggest reading whiplash of my life was going from the methodical "Order without Design" to the vibes-only "Against the Machine" which was clearly a bunch of Substack posts turned into a book

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 3w ago

Shout-out to the Mexican globalization stan at the end. Never read any of your publications, but I appreciate your energy.

Cato Institute@cato.org · 3w ago

How did you become a libertarian? We sat down with 10 scholars and staff at the Cato Institute—with different origin stories, areas of expertise, and concerns—to find out how they came to libertarianism, what gives them hope, and what they would fix first if they could. https://ow.ly/ObOn50Zp4W9

Alon (they/them)@alonlevy.bsky.social · 3w ago

Prompt to urbanists: assume, technically, that a cloud city as depicted below is feasible and economically desirable. Come up with reasonable dimensions for it and describe what the internal circulation and land use of the cloud city would be; you may make any economic or SF tech assumptions.

Paul Duncan / Writer / Editor / Films / Books / Comics@kershed.bsky.social · 3w ago

July 16–18, 1978: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: Ralph McQuarrie painted “Cloud City” and explained that the spectacular vista is meant to represent an earlier, more enlightened age: “A place for people to marvel at things.” #StarWarsArchives19771983 youtu.be/fgKQaRMBuVs

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 4w ago

Before October, I biked everywhere in Toronto. My e-bike made awkward distances manageable. Then I got injured so couldn't bike anymore and oh my god the streetcars are so slow and unreliable. But also less fun?!? I almost got an (illegal) e-scooter.

Melissa Bowman@dtkmelissa.bsky.social · 4w ago

Question: if you don't use transit (or only rarely), why is that? Time? Hassle of paying? Limited transit service in your area? Unreliable? Something else? (This is a genuine question to better understand barriers people face with transit, not a judgement that you 'should' be using transit more!).

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Really appreciate the Background of this paper discussing gentrification and displacement journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Where Do They Go? The Destinations of Residents Moving from Gentrifying Neighborhoods - Lance Freeman, Jackelyn Hwang, Tyler Haupert, Iris Zhang, 2024

The fate of residents living in gentrifying neighborhoods remains an important yet little understood outcome of the gentrification process. In this study, we as...

journals.sagepub.com

Zak Yudhishthu@zyudhishthu.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Adam Guren and co-authors have research that’s helpful for reconciling the bubble view with the long-run fundamental view on 2008. Two things can be true: - Fundamentals incl. amenities and supply constraints have driven overall price growth the last few decades - Some over-optimism caused a bubble.

The 2000s Housing Cycle With 2020 Hindsight: A Neo-Kindlebergerian View Gabriel Chodorow-Reich Harvard University and NBER Adam M. Guren Boston University and NBER Timothy J. McQuade UC Berkeley October 2022 Abstract With "2020 hindsight," the 2000s housing cycle is not a boom-bust but a boom-bust-rebound. Using a spatial equilibrium regression in which house prices are determined by income, amenities, urbanization, and supply, we show that long-run city-level fundamentals predict not only 1997-2019 price and rent growth but also the amplitude of the boom-bust-rebound. This evidence motivates our model of a cycle rooted in funda-mentals. Households learn about fundamentals by observing "dividends" but become over-optimistic in the boom due to diagnostic expectations. A bust ensues when beliefs start to correct, exacerbated by a price-foreclosure spiral that drives prices below their long-run level. The rebound follows as prices converge to a path commensurate with higher fundamental growth. The estimated model explains the boom-bust-rebound with a single shock and accounts quantitatively for the dynamics of prices, rents, and foreclosures in cities with the largest cycles. We draw implications for asset cycles more generally.
Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Increasingly annoyed by the OLP leadership emails I'm getting. There's no policies or acknowledgement of trade-offs?!? I thought I was in a policy safe-space. What's with all the vague competence signalling?

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 2mo ago

In contrast, the courtyard I visit semi-regularly on Elsie Ln is frequently occupied by children and/or parents maps.app.goo.gl/LodTswqBRhz6... Speculation: more grass and more open feeling?

maps.app.goo.gl

Damien Moule@damienmoule.bsky.social · 3mo ago

At an Impossible Toronto panel discussion during the winter I mentioned that my stacked townhouse complex was as close to a courtyard development as we get here in Toronto but that nobody used the courtyard (except me and my daughter). Here we are, beautiful day in May. No one around. I don't get it

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Dual-wielding "Do you have any testable predictions?" and "What evidence would you need to see to change your mind?" like the most insufferable rhetoric gunslinger until I'm thrown out of the hangout.

Sean Aubin@seanny123.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Went to a lecture by Kevin Bryan: seemed to be arguing against someone, but had no coherent thesis. Read Perfect City by Joe Berridge: oh, this was who Kevin was arguing against. I would have enjoyed both more if they had testable predictions!