Paavo Monkkonen

@elpaavo.bsky.social

1.1K followers 240 following 100 posts

Housing scholar - California, Mexico, France, Hong Kong

Videos

Economics 64%

Political science 11%

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Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 2d

Receipts! What did she say?

Reposted by Paavo Monkkonen

UCLA Lewis Center @uclalewiscenter.bsky.social · 3d

It was a pleasure to begin our 2025-26 Housing Lecture Series with @elpaavo.bsky.social

After two years in Paris, we're thrilled to have Paavo back in LA, and enjoyed his history/analysis on French social housing. 🇫🇷🏗️ His lecture is linked below

youtu.be/t2Yp8oPIAZw

Professor Paavo Monkkonen teaching a class in a gold room in Paris. Credit: Paavo Monkkonen

Paavo and family riding around the streets of Lyon during his sabbatical in France. Credit: Paavo Monkkonen

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 4d

A great block! Used to bike past here a lot

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 4d

How’s my hometown doing?

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 7d

anyone have the backstory on the revolutionary landlords of santa monica?

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 9d

North Korean cold kimchi noodles at Ham Hung is great. Risk your like and bike around! One classic trip is walking / biking wilshire blvd from downtown to the beach… If you want to go to LACMA I can hook you up. Let’s grab lunch or something!

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 9d

have you been here before? It’s hard to say, it’s a big city! the museum of jurassic technology is fantastic, and there’s some good food near there. Venice beach? I like small world books on the boardwalk. Walk around downtown, bradbury building maybe.

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 9d

m.youtube.com/watch?v=hwSw...

Reyner Banham Loves Los Angeles (1972) BBC

YouTube video by modcinema

m.youtube.com

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 10d

households in LA with more car space than house space

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 13d

welcome to LA! Hanging on by some painters tape

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 14d

I do agree w that Monkkonen guy, feels like he‘s got beef with American urban planning

luskin.ucla.edu/sending-a-po...

Sending a Pointed Message Through Real Estate

“Hostile architecture is very American,” UCLA Luskin’s Paavo Monkkonen says of the phenomenon of using “spite houses” to settle scores.

luskin.ucla.edu

Reposted by Paavo Monkkonen

Adrián @elenoam.bsky.social · 16d

Mexico City has a participatory budget. Usually, neighbors vote for pavement and street lighting with super low turnouts.
This year, some of the wealthiest neighborhoods voted to hire lawyers to prtoect exclusionary zoning within their boroughs 😖

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 16d

Moving back to LA I sought out a walkable neighborhood. Last night two people walking on the side were killed a block from my apartment. Should I still walk here?

www.latimes.com/california/s...

Wrong-way motorist who fled on foot sought in fatal hit-and-run in Santa Monica

Santa Monica police are searching for a hit-run driver who plowed onto a busy Wilshire Boulevard sidewalk Friday night, killing two pedestrians and injuring two others.

www.latimes.com

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 25d

do you have a guesstimate of how many total units of rezoned capacity SB79 will unlock? @idothethinking.bsky.social

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · 25d

a benevolent developer should make sure the first SB79 project in a single family neighborhood is a pretty building… prettier than ai can generate of course

Reposted by Laurent Dubois, Paavo Monkkonen, Patrick Stokes

hucksgiving @tylerhuckabee.bsky.social · 29d

In 2004, Parisian police were conducting a training exercise in the french catacombs and found, after moving past a desk and a tape playing audio of snarling dogs, a fully functional movie theater and bar. When they returned 3 days later, the equipment was gone, with a note: “Do not try to find us.”

Members of the force's sports squad, responsible
- among other tasks - for policing the 170 miles of tunnels, caves, galleries and catacombs that underlie large parts of Paris, stumbled on the complex while on a training exercise beneath the Palais de Chaillot, across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower.
After entering the network through a drain next to the Trocadero, the officers came across a tarpaulin marked: Building site, No access.
Behind that, a tunnel held a desk and a closed-circuit TV camera set to automatically record images of anyone passing. The mechanism also triggered a tape of dogs barking, "clearly designed to frighten people off," the spokesman said.
Further along, the tunnel opened into a vast 400 sq metre cave some 18m underground, "like an underground amphitheatre, with terraces cut into the rock and chairs".

There the police found a full-sized cinema screen, projection equipment, and tapes of a wide variety of films, including 1950s film noir classics and more recent thrillers. None of the films were banned or even offensive, the spokesman said.
A smaller cave next door had been turned into an informal restaurant and bar. "There were bottles of whisky and other spirits behind a bar, tables and chairs, a pressure-cooker for making couscous," the spokesman said.
"The whole thing ran off a professionally installed electricity system and there were at least three phone lines down there."
Three days later, when the police returned accompanied by experts from the French electricity board to see where the power was coming from, the phone and electricity lines had been cut and a note was lying in the middle of the floor: "Do not," it said, "try to find us."

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · Oct 10

looks familiar, probably in the Confluence? pretty sure I see the Pont Raymond-Barre in the background

Reposted by Paavo Monkkonen

Tero Kuittinen @teroterotero.bsky.social · Oct 9

Ice breaker specialist Mikko Suominen (!!) warns about the crucial importance of continuing intense ice breaker R&D efforts to maintain Finland’s leadership in ice breaker technology.

www.is.fi/taloussanoma...

Asiantuntijalta varoitus Suomen jättidiilistä

Meritekniikan asiantuntija muistuttaa jatkuvan tutkimuksen tärkeydestä.

www.is.fi

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · Oct 6

Did someone say social housing? If you're in LA, I'll be talking about my research on French social housing on Oct 29th. I'll present early results from a project with Florence Goffette-Nagot & Romain Durand on why some landlords build so much more than others...

www.lewis.ucla.edu/event/learni...

Learning From Social Housing Production in France - UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies

www.lewis.ucla.edu

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · Oct 4

someone should make a Luskin law tracker

Paavo Monkkonen @elpaavo.bsky.social · Sep 17

best birthday message #sncf #grandvoyageur #chemindefer #garedelyon

Reposted by Paavo Monkkonen

Shane Phillips @shanedphillips.bsky.social · Sep 10

New episode, new mini-series! For this first entry in our Incentives Series, we invited @holz-bau.bsky.social to discuss his recent book, Building for People. Yes, that means we're talking single-stair reform. www.lewis.ucla.edu/2025/09/10/9...