Sam Holden
@samuholden.bsky.social
Urbanist & translator in Tokyo & Onomichi. I’ve built Tokyo Little House, Labyrinth House, and Inari-Yu Nagaya, and run bath preservation org Sento & Neighborhood. Writing at samholden.jp
Reposted by Sam Holden
SENATOR @warnock.senate.gov : “Are we reading the same Book? The Book I know says ‘I was hungry, and you fed me… I was a stranger, and you welcomed me… insomuch as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it also unto me.’”
#TrumpsTrillionsTransfer
#TrumpsTrillionsTransfer
July 4, 2025 at 1:21 PM
SENATOR @warnock.senate.gov : “Are we reading the same Book? The Book I know says ‘I was hungry, and you fed me… I was a stranger, and you welcomed me… insomuch as you’ve done it to the least of these, you’ve done it also unto me.’”
#TrumpsTrillionsTransfer
#TrumpsTrillionsTransfer
The story of Tokyo’s very high rate of #bicycle use is not so much about hard bike infrastructure as a question of neighborhood scale. For ex., #Tokyo has a latent network of ancient “desire lines”: paths that directly link activity centers (former villages) or flow with the contours of the land.
Why Tokyo bikes more than NYC
It’s not more bike lanes. It’s the absence of cars
www.samholden.jp
June 19, 2025 at 6:15 PM
Reposted by Sam Holden
It's 2015. President Barack Obama has accepted a "sky palace" jumbo jet from the Qatari government, which he'll own after he leaves office. "Everybody relax," he says in an interview with the New York Times. Everyone does. The networks then televise the military parade in his honor on his birthday.
May 11, 2025 at 6:43 PM
It's 2015. President Barack Obama has accepted a "sky palace" jumbo jet from the Qatari government, which he'll own after he leaves office. "Everybody relax," he says in an interview with the New York Times. Everyone does. The networks then televise the military parade in his honor on his birthday.
Rare analysis of CAHSR that contextualizes its difficulty/cost in @asteriskmag.bsky.social. Abundance dems should fight to accelerate, not abandon, this project. Complaints about how gov fails at building belies fact that we have *barely even tried*. Funding at less than $1B/year in $4T CA economy!
Reports of the Death of California High-Speed Rail Have Been Greatly Exaggerated—Asterisk
Building a high-speed rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco was never going to be easy — but the critics who write it off are missing the real source of the project’s struggles.
asteriskmag.com
April 28, 2025 at 10:52 PM
Rare analysis of CAHSR that contextualizes its difficulty/cost in @asteriskmag.bsky.social. Abundance dems should fight to accelerate, not abandon, this project. Complaints about how gov fails at building belies fact that we have *barely even tried*. Funding at less than $1B/year in $4T CA economy!
Being in America always makes me think of the transit that should exist, but doesn’t. With inspiration from the maps of @lostsubways.com and @nickandert.bsky.social
Transit and techno-futurism
When new tech arrives, what other futures does America lose in its embrace?
www.samholden.jp
April 22, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Being in America always makes me think of the transit that should exist, but doesn’t. With inspiration from the maps of @lostsubways.com and @nickandert.bsky.social
If Silicon Valley wants to take credit for all their inventions, only fair that the balance sheet also includes saddling us with a futurist death cult, no? Looking rather net negative atm
The rise of end times fascism | Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
The governing ideology of the far right has become a monstrous, supremacist survivalism. Our task is to build a movement strong enough to stop them
www.theguardian.com
April 19, 2025 at 2:39 AM
If Silicon Valley wants to take credit for all their inventions, only fair that the balance sheet also includes saddling us with a futurist death cult, no? Looking rather net negative atm
Holy smokes—Trump knows the word “ennoble”
Trump Administration Says It Will Take Over Renovation of Penn Station
The head of the federal Department of Transportation promised on Thursday to take away control of the project from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
www.nytimes.com
April 19, 2025 at 2:34 AM
Holy smokes—Trump knows the word “ennoble”
Hard to miss the cultural revolution parallels when 19-year-old Thiel acolytes are driving career bureaucrats out of the treasury, but this also applies
February 4, 2025 at 8:13 AM
Hard to miss the cultural revolution parallels when 19-year-old Thiel acolytes are driving career bureaucrats out of the treasury, but this also applies
Funny how in 2012 Obama runs and wins against Romney as the rapacious private equity guy who shredded good companies for profit, so the republicans pivot to “party of the working people,” then let the richest guy in the world actually execute a hostile takeover of the government to scrap for parts
February 4, 2025 at 1:36 AM
Funny how in 2012 Obama runs and wins against Romney as the rapacious private equity guy who shredded good companies for profit, so the republicans pivot to “party of the working people,” then let the richest guy in the world actually execute a hostile takeover of the government to scrap for parts
Christopher Alexander wrote of two systems of creating the world: system-A, organic and rooted in context and wholeness, and system-B, mechanical, money-driven, and rarely context-sensitive. Labyrinth House is an effort to practice architecture in system-A.
Two systems of architecture
Thoughts on producing space, and my dream bath at Labyrinth House
open.substack.com
November 14, 2024 at 3:05 AM
Christopher Alexander wrote of two systems of creating the world: system-A, organic and rooted in context and wholeness, and system-B, mechanical, money-driven, and rarely context-sensitive. Labyrinth House is an effort to practice architecture in system-A.