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cityobservatory.bsky.social
City Observatory
@cityobservatory.bsky.social
5.8K followers 2.3K following 3K posts
Original research and commentary on what matters for city success.
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Reposted by City Observatory
stephenjacobsmith.com
In 2018, then-Mayor Ada Colau called Barcelona’s new 30% inclusionary housing requirement for projects over 600m^2 a “paradigm shift,” making housing “a right and not a commodity.” It was supposed to produce 330 affordable units a year. The reality: just 31 affordable apartments in all these years.
November 9, 2025 at 6:28 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
senkhanhpham.bsky.social
Horrified to learn of another serious traffic crash on 82nd Avenue.

Policymakers are about to make major decisions about how to reshape this critical main street. I'm committed to working with my colleagues to ensure 82nd is safer for everyone biking, walking and driving.

https://loom.ly/jOdxsQQ
Cyclist critically injured in hit-and-run crash in Northeast Portland
A woman on a bicycle was critically injured in a crash on Northeast 82nd Avenue early Sunday. The driver left the scene, police said.
www.kgw.com
November 3, 2025 at 8:40 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
bikeloudpdx.bsky.social
Sarah Risser, @familiesforsafestreets.org leader & recent BikeLoud Board member, will focus attention on the 20 people killed on SE 82nd in the past decade.

World Day of Remembrance 11/16/25 #WDoR2025

www.google.com/maps/d/viewe...
A map with the locations and addresses of Road Fatalities on SE 82nd Signs that will be installed along SE 82nd in November that say, "Our Neighbor Was Killed Here."
November 1, 2025 at 6:18 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
maiamindel.bsky.social
Not to go all Robert Gordon but the potential benefits as a % of GDP are also much smaller. Going from no internet to internet is a much bigger bang for your buck than going from internet to AI
seanbrodrick.bsky.social Sean Brodrick @seanbrodrick.bsky.social · 10d
The bullish view on #AI ...
October 31, 2025 at 8:23 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
yonahfreemark.com
The US federal government's spending on housing—directly through the budget, or through tax expenditures—amounts to more than $400 billion a year.

Only about 1/4 of that goes to low-income renters. The majority is spent on subsidizing higher-income homeowners.

www.urban.org/research/pub...
The Federal Government Commits Hundreds of Billions of Dollars Annually to Reducing Housing Costs through a Variety of Mechanisms
October 30, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
samalcorn.bsky.social
The “residential” building code exists in the first place for very bad reasons. Don’t ever forget that. Lawrence Veiller, addressing the NAHB in 1913:
From the NAHB proceedings, 1913: MR. LAWRENCE VEILLER, Secretary, National Housing As- sociation, New York City: The question is "How can we keep apartment houses and tenement houses and flats out of our city?" Before 212 NATIONAL HOUSING ASSOCIATION we can answer that we must be sure that we want to keep them out. If we put it to a vote in any one of your cities, I think we would find it very difficult to get a vote against an apartment house. I am not for it —don't misunderstand me — but I do recognize that it provides a very convenient way of living, and because of the servant question, which Mr. Davis alluded to, a great many people prefer it. Per-sonally, I think it indicates a very bad tendency and will have a very bad effect on American life and upon our political and social conditions. I don't think you can have proper homes in an apartment house of the highest type. The question is, " How are we going to stop it?" I think there is a way; at least, I have tried it and I think it is going to work. In framing our laws to regulate the construction of dwellings of all kinds, do everything possible in our laws to encourage the construction of private dwellings and even two-family dwellings, because the two-family house is the next least objectionable type, and penalize so far as we can in our statute, the multiple dwelling of any kind, whether it is flat, apartment house or tenement house. It If we require multiple dwellings to be fireproof, and thus increase the cost of construction; if we require stairs to be fireproofed, even where there are only three families; if we require fire-escapes and a host of other things, all dealing with fire protection, we are on safe grounds, because that can be justified as a legitimate exercise of the police power. We can show the necessity of these extra precautions where many families live in a dwelling, and at the same time we have made it difficult to build apartment houses. I recommend that method to the conference. In our laws let most of our fire provisions relate solely to multiple dwellings, CITIES OF HOMES 218 and allow our private houses and two-family houses to be built with almost no fire protection whatever.
October 29, 2025 at 9:48 PM
cityobservatory.bsky.social
Lars Larson Interview: Is the Interstate Bridge Destined to Fail?

https://cityobservatory.org/lars-larson-interview-is-the-interstate-bridge-destined-to-fail/
October 28, 2025 at 4:58 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
jensvb.bsky.social
This was motivated by British stats on this question that spiked our interest. Unfortunately we could not find good Canadian data on shelter cost per square metre, we proxy for this by using shelter cost per room. And consider longer timelines.
antbreach.bsky.social Ant Breach @antbreach.bsky.social · 24d
Great chart here from @resfoundation.bsky.social on housing costs by square metre by age. Britain's problems with Nimbyism and the planning system in a nutshell.
October 27, 2025 at 3:55 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
siegman.biz
A meta-analysis of more than 50 studies of the effect of parking prices on parking demand found that elasticity of demand for parking with respect to parking price averages 0.4 (Lehner & Peer 2019). That is, on average, a 1% increase in parking price results in about a 0.4% decrease in demand.
October 25, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
siegman.biz
This planner thinks finding 35% of spaces empty means that “city planners…are actually doing a pretty good job already in understanding how much parking is needed.” That’s wrong. In the Vancouver region, the typical price of parking has been driven far below cost by minimum parking mandates.
October 25, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
siegman.biz
As UCLA Professor Donald Shoup explains, "Demand is a function of price, and this does not cease to be true merely because transportation engineers and urban planners ignore it."

See: #ParkingAndTheCity, page 73.
www.researchgate.net/publication/...
See also: www.accessmagazine.org/spring-2002/...
(PDF) Parking and the City
PDF | Donald Shoup overcame the challenge of writing about parking without being boring in his iconoclastic 800-page book The High Cost of Free Parking.... | Find, read and cite all the research you n...
www.researchgate.net
October 25, 2025 at 3:27 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
fox12oregon.bsky.social
Video from Portland ICE building shows arrest after agents appear to pull protester over line https://www.kptv.com/2025/10/26/video-portland-ice-building-shows-arrest-after-agents-appear-pull-protester-over-line/
Image 1
October 26, 2025 at 5:00 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
benrosstransit.bsky.social
My article with @cityobservatory.bsky.social's Joe Cortright giving the history of how the Beltway toll lane traffic modelers altered their model outputs and Maryland DOT and FHWA tried to cover it up.
www.dissentmagazine.org/online_artic...
Highway Robbery - Dissent Magazine
Government highway agencies have enabled the blatant falsification of traffic model results. Consequently, the United States wastes billions on road expansions that fail to cure congestion and make it...
www.dissentmagazine.org
October 26, 2025 at 3:28 PM
cityobservatory.bsky.social
IBR is losing its leader, Greg Johnson, at a very bad time: It is two years behind schedule, late on producing a new cost estimate that will push its price to almost $10 billion, is unlikely to get Coast Guard approval, and may lose $2 billion in federal grants. cityobservatory.org/ibr-johnson_...
IBR’s problems are much deeper than its leadership – City Observatory
cityobservatory.org
October 25, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
bortblad.bsky.social
Greg Johnson had a massive conflict of interest. He was a WSP Senior VP. Hired as the IBR Administrator he managed a $76 million contract with WSP.
October 25, 2025 at 12:39 AM
Reposted by City Observatory
sifill.bsky.social
So they didn’t like the ad. Let’s just post Reagan’s 5 min speech against tariffs as it appears on YouTube.

Over and over. On all platforms (some of y’all are still on X).

*1981 Sherrilyn horrified by 2025 Sherrilyn saying “let’s post Reagan’s speech.”

youtu.be/5t5QK03KXPc
President Reagan's Radio Address on Free and Fair Trade on April 25, 1987
YouTube video by Reagan Library
youtu.be
October 24, 2025 at 5:14 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
kiplet.myatproto.social
They lie, they lie, they lie, and then they lie some more.
chrisgeidner.bsky.social Chris Geidner @chrisgeidner.bsky.social · 17d
Immergut asked about this filing at the Ninth Circuit, in which the plaintiffs assert that we now know there were never more than 31 — not 115 — Federal Protection Service officers sent to Portland at any time. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
RE: State of Oregon v. Trump, No. 25-6268 Plaintiffs' Letter Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 280) Dear Ms. Dwyer: Plaintiffs write to alert the Court of a material factual error by defendants on which the panel relied to grant a stay pending appeal. Given that reliance, and the gravity of the interests at stake, plaintiffs ask that the panel immediately withdraw its order or, in the alternative, that the en banc court immediately vacate it. The panel majority held that defendants were likely to prevail under 10 U.S.C. § 12406(3) because the record showed a colorable inability to execute federal law. (Order 23-31). Central to that determination was the majority's acceptance of defendants' averments that protests had forced the redeployment of 115 Federal Protection Service officers, "nearly 25% of FPS officers nationwide," to Portland. (Id. at 27-31). The dissent noted that defendants' declaration on the actual extent of the deployment was "carefully worded" to the point of "vague." (Dissent 16-21). But defendants' counsel emphasized at oral argument the "magnitude" and "unsustainab[ility]" of having 115 FPS offices redeployed; then, when asked directly whether all 115 officers remained in Portland, counsel stated only that "some" had gone home but "many" remained. (Oral arg., 10/9/2025, at 9:48-9:58, 11:04-12:09). However, in discovery produced last night, defendants admitted that 115 FPS officers have never been redeployed to Portland. Only a fraction of that number was ever in Portland at any given time before the President's directive: 6/16/2025 - 7/15/2025: 27 7/15/2025 - 8/12/2025: 31 8/12/2025 - 9/10/2025: 29 9/10/2025 - 10/5/2025: 20 (Dkt. 108-1 at 4-5).' Critically, armed with the Court's stay order, defendants have now moved to dissolve the second TRO in this case, and the district court has scheduled a hearing on that motion for October 24, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. This Court must act swiftly to prevent defendants from attempting to benefit from their own material mistake to deploy military forces to peaceful civilian streets, contravening the rule of law and our nation's history and traditions. The panel majority's stay order should be withdrawn or vacated immediately. Respectfully submitted, DAN RAYFIELD #064790 Attorney General
October 24, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
awalkerinla.bsky.social
LA is building a new $1.5 billion freeway into LAX.

The very same airport where we just spent $2 billion on the people mover — actually, more like $3 billion, plus another $900 million if you count Metro's investment in the LAX station; so let's just say $4 billion — to make cars go away
Air traffic control
The LAX-pressway must be stopped
www.torched.la
October 23, 2025 at 9:42 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
alexbaumhardt.bsky.social
Feds have repeatedly claimed 115+ federal police (25% of force) had to be deployed to Portland over the summer to quell violence. Oregon lawyers found on discovery this was not true and are asking 9th Circuit to reverse Monday decision because feds lied:
www.documentcloud.org/documents/26...
October 24, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
jcbradbury.com
Every economist asked about the project said it was a bad idea, with the exception of the one guy the city hired to tell them it would work. Who did they decide to listen to? And they still won't admit they were wrong. wbjournal.com/article/spor...
Sports economists: $101M WooSox stadium deal unlikely to beat the odds
Sports economists sharply criticized Worcester's ballpark plan, saying public benefits are often minimal and the spillover effects overstated.
wbjournal.com
October 22, 2025 at 3:00 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
jcbradbury.com
"my support is based on the clear sociocultural benefits... and from the solid expectation that it won’t cost the Worcester taxpayers one penny. Indeed, the project promises to generate net funds to support additional city services in the areas of education, infrastructure and security."
Guest columnist Andrew Zimbalist: The case for Worcester's stadium deal
Predictably, the announcement of an agreement among the city of Worcester, the Red Sox’s Triple A franchise and Denis Dowdle’s Madison Properties has elicited some controversy. Several academic econo…
www.telegram.com
October 22, 2025 at 2:53 PM
cityobservatory.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2025/10/18/u... Protesters sported costumes, including the inflatable frog ensemble that activists in Portland, Ore., began wearing to poke fun at the White House’s attempt to portray activists as anarchists or domestic terrorists.
‘No More Trump!’: Protesters Denouncing the President Unite Across the Country
www.nytimes.com
October 19, 2025 at 12:07 AM
Reposted by City Observatory
ddsyrdal.bsky.social
For those of you who don't understand, and indeed are disparaging, the tactics Portlanders (and now other locations) are using to combat the lies of the regime, this explains it very well.
youtu.be/AIOLcNkaoh4?...
How a guy in a chicken suit ruined Kristi Noem's propaganda campaign in Portland
YouTube video by Parkrose Permaculture
youtu.be
October 17, 2025 at 10:16 PM
Reposted by City Observatory
cameronmaltby.bsky.social
Applicable to virtually every beg button in the @cityofnorthvan.bsky.social
October 10, 2025 at 12:19 AM
cityobservatory.bsky.social
Greenwashing the Interstate Bridge Project

https://cityobservatory.org/greenwashing-the-interstate-bridge-project/
October 16, 2025 at 5:12 PM