Maxwell Palmer
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Maxwell Palmer
@maxwellpalmer.com
440 followers 490 following 56 posts
Political scientist at Boston University. Institutions + local politics + voting rights.

www.maxwellpalmer.com / www.housingpolitics.com
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maxwellpalmer.com
The Define-Combine Procedure allows both parties to act in their own partisan interests but produces a fair map by dividing map-drawing power between both parties.
Instead, we believe it is possible to make reforms that keep the current electoral system while also overcoming some of its flaws. We’ve developed a process-based solution that has a number of appealing properties. It’s inspired by the problem parents face when dividing a cake between two children. How can they make sure everyone gets an equal slice? One child cuts the cake in two, and the other child chooses between the two pieces. Our approach, which we call the “Define-Combine Procedure,” splits the map drawing process into two simple stages. First, one party divides the state into twice the number of needed districts—for example, 20 sub-districts for a state that needs 10 congressional seats. Then, the second party pairs those sub-districts into the final 10 districts. The result is a fairer map than either party would have drawn on its own. Instead of mutually assured gerrymandering, this approach leads to mutually assured representation.
August 14, 2025 at 9:36 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
Really?
NYT spelling bee, rejecting the word “monotonic.”
May 7, 2025 at 3:12 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
You can’t have enough.
December 17, 2024 at 1:42 AM
maxwellpalmer.com
The Thanksgiving stuffing waffle is the platonic ideal of leftovers.
A perfect waffle, made from Thanksgiving stuffing.
November 30, 2024 at 4:25 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
Here are the thirteen cases we've found over the last ten years. If you know of more, please share them with @katherineeinst.bsky.social and me!
Table showing 13 different instances in which local governments purchased land expressly to stop a housing development since 2010. These purchases totaled over $50 million in public funds. Table includes Ashland, Billerica, Dover, Duxbury, Hingham, Marblehead, Norwood, Peabody, Quincy, Scituate (x2), Sudbury, and Wellesley.
November 25, 2024 at 1:51 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
Great callout from @bostonglobe.com from our new report with The Boston Foundation:
"Ashland and another dirty dozen Greater Boston communities were identified in a recent report published by the research arm of the Boston Foundation as places where 'Public opposition to housing is so extreme. . . that public land has become weaponized as a tool to stop housing development, rather than an opportunity to subsidize affordable housing.'"
November 25, 2024 at 1:51 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
About 1/3 of this public land is vacant. If just 5% of the vacant, non-conservation land was used for multifamily housing, more than 85,000 units could be built.
November 12, 2024 at 2:47 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
The state and municipalities own a huge amount of land in greater Boston - almost 1/4.
November 12, 2024 at 2:47 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
The Boston Foundation released the 2024 Greater Boston Housing Report Card today, including a report on the potential use of publicly owned land for building housing by me and Katie Einstein.

www.tbf.org/-/media/tbf/...
November 12, 2024 at 2:47 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
We develop a new method to reduce partisan gerrymandering that doesn't require independent commissions, judges, or tiebreakers.
December 13, 2023 at 2:40 PM
maxwellpalmer.com
Happy to see Arlington, Lexington, and Brookline go beyond the minimum for new multi-family housing zoning. I hope other towns follow.
www.bostonglobe.com/2023/11/16/o...
Still, it’s notable that in its plan to allow four-story buildings on much of Harvard Street, Brookline went beyond the bare minimum to meet the law’s requirements. It’s not alone in that regard: Lexington and Arlington also did more than the law required (and sooner than required). Brookline’s proposal also passed overwhelmingly: 207 to 33, with 7 abstentions. NIMBYs get the most attention, but there is clearly a pro-housing constituency in the Massachusetts suburbs, and those housing advocates are effectively capitalizing on the opportunity the law has created for communities to reexamine decades-old zoning.
November 16, 2023 at 12:51 PM