The PTP folks simply refuse to confront the issue of affordability in any meaningful way beyond performative hand-wringing.

The purpose of a city is not to be a museum-piece of nostalgia for people who moved in decades ago. It’s to suit the needs of those who live and work there today.

Being a student (undergrad and later grad) I watched housing affordability deteriorate.

- In the 2000s I knew grad students who bought condos or small houses
- By mid-2010s, finding a small apartment on a grad student stipend was difficult
- Today you need a roommate or personal savings

#a2council

Also, incoherent NIMBY confusion over basic economics. Erin is worried that The Developers will cram “unlimited” units into four story buildings like the Weasleys’ car from Harry Potter; meanwhile Kitty thinks the housing supply is a zero-sum game where homes can only be replaced, never added. 🤦‍♂️

We’ve seen this movie before. Refusal to build is a choice to create an in-place retirement community.

First step will be school closings and “where did all the trick-or-treaters go”? Then it’ll be “why are so many restaurants closing” and finally “I guess I’ll retire to Atlanta where my kids live”

My vision for Ann Arbor‘s future: vibrant neighborhoods with bustling sidewalks, density that supports transit, and local businesses thriving because their workers can afford to be both customers and residents.

The choice of growth over fear, abundance over scarcity, and opportunity over exclusion.

I currently live in Sunnyvale, California, which is like Ann Arbor’s Ghost of Christmas future: aging, dilapidated housing stock where teardowns start at $1 million, next-door neighbors have a 10x difference in taxes thanks to Prop 13, and the local schools can’t even afford school buses.

Such a sharp contrast to many of those who spoke in favor, articulating things like enabling their children to bike to school, their friends (even those not married to business professors) being able to afford a home, and wanting their children to not be priced out of their hometown.

Tried for hours (on Monday morning when I had work to do) to get an in-network provider appointment. Gave up, went to Target, signed 1 sheet of paper, used Apple Pay, and was out in 20 minutes. Ordered glasses from a place w/ overnight delivery. $350 total compared to waiting weeks.

As an illustration of this, I broke my glasses over the weekend and am currently relying on a pair from 2018 that make all distant light sources look like large glowing blurry orbs (antiglare coating is worn out). Can’t get my last prescription because the optometrist went out of business.

Winter in the northeast will do this to you but it tends to burn out by mid January GL

Screenshot from Jerusalem Demsas’ excellent article

www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc...

Man, the comments on that article are so bleak. Beyond the usual blaming of immigrants, wealthy homeowners, the Fed, and Airbnb, we have insightful ideas like “actually wanting a home is bad for the environment” and one person openly advocating for a large fraction of the population to die 😬

In fairness to the high school kids it’s tough to grasp the humor while hitting all the key changes and trying to remember whether this “I wiiiiiish… t’g’t’the FESTival” is the one that switches to 7/31 time.

I’m sorry but if a random resident during a community input session has better ideas for locating a driveway than the designers, traffic engineers, and other city staff, that suggests that some other process is broken, not that community input sessions are good.