Jordan Grimes (on Bluesky @cafedujord)
@cafedujord
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Housing 🏠 + transit 🚎 + climate 🌎 Lead Member: @penforeveryone President: @pydems Good opinions mine, bad opinions someone else's. YIMBY.
Bay Area
Joined March 2009
Pure joy in Half Moon Bay tonight as the 555 Kelly saga arrives at a happy ending: after months of delay, endless meetings, hours & hours of public testimony…city council unanimously rejected the appeals and approved 40 new 100% affordable homes for senior farm workers!
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Me every time a new supreme court decision comes out lately
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Left: New York City in climate disaster movie The Day After Tomorrow (2004). Right: New York City in climate disaster reality, tonight (2021)
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Unlike in 2016 I genuinely don't know what she could have done differently, and that's really hard to take.
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These are illegal to build in basically every city and suburb in America. They don't work for everyone, but many, many people would jump at the chance to rent one, and legalizing them would put a huge dent in our housing/homelessness crisis.
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Good evening, Twitter! I’m spending my Friday night in the affluent Bay Area suburb of Millbrae, where the county is presenting a plan to turn a hotel into ~100 homes for unhoused residents. It appears that the entire city is here, and they are *pissed*. 🧵
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Part of the reason I'm such a staunch advocate for massively expanding public transit coverage and frequency is that there are TONS of people on our roads right now who cannot and should not be allowed to drive a car.
JUST IN: A 78-year-old woman has been accused of manslaughter after a horrific wrong-way crash killed three and severely injured an infant on Saturday at a bus stop in West Portal.
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Holy hell, it actually happened: California just eliminated minimum parking requirements for new housing projects within a half mile of public transit stops *statewide*!. A truly incredible day for housing and climate policy in the world's 5th largest economy!
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This is one of the most insane things I've ever seen
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A Berkeley homeowner who spends half his time at his second home in New Zealand used a California environmental law passed by Ronald Reagan to cut enrollment at one of the best universities in the world. This sentence is unbelievable, yet somehow entirely factually accurate.
BREAKING: UC Berkeley must slash admissions by thousands after state Supreme Court sides with neighbors who sued.
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Pro-tip for homeowners: you bought the house, not the neighborhood!.
PEOPLE DON'T WANT APARTMENT COMPLEXES BUILT NEXT TO THE HOME THEY JUST PAID OFF AFTER 30 YEARS.
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Tom, a 32 year resident who lives next door to the project says he supports it! He immediately gets booed. He asks what he, as a neighbor and resident, can do to help make this a success. Thank you, Tom!!!.
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Someone just asked how giving homeless people homes will solve homeless, and reader, I screamed.
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Hard truth: your homeowner parents and family members organizing to fight new apartments and keep their cities and suburbs exclusive is responsible for exorbitant housing costs, not "Zillow buying up all the homes".
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Kathy Hochul just got loudly booed when the DNC cut to the New York delegation to cast their votes 😂💀.
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"There’s a serious housing shortage. It’s too difficult to build, & it’s driving prices up. We will take down barriers & cut red tape including at the state & local levels. We will end America's housing shortage by building 3,000,000 new homes.". Kamala just went full YIMBY!
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Menswear guy is unambiguously correct in both cases
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Free parking is not, in fact, a human right.
Tell me your most radical position that cannot be placed on the left-right political spectrum.
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Another question: why are you taking care of the homeless instead of teachers, police, and nurses? Why are we taking care of the homeless?. County Exec Callagy: *all* housing is important and needed in this county. Author’s note: that’s goddamn right.
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Living in your house is free; maintaining your community costs money. That's what you're paying for. Not sure why this is so hard for some people to understand!.
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This NIMBY ad is unintentionally very based
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In one afternoon, Gavin Newsom has vetoed bills to prohibit caste discrimination, decriminalize hallucinogens, and create a statewide social housing program. Pardon my french, but what the actual fuck is going on in the Governor's office?.
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YIMBYs to the white house!. "We have permitting that takes too long. and prohibits or makes more expensive doing renewable energy projects. I think that same thing applies to housing. We put up barriers to making it more affordable." - Democratic VP Candidate Tim Walz
CNN: VP Harris has selected MN gov. Tim Walz to be her running mate.
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The fact that this woman is getting her license back is frankly insane. If you run over and kill someone with your car, you should, at bare-minimum, lose your license and never be allowed behind the wheel ever again.
The driver who struck and killed a 4-year-old girl in a S.F. intersection will avoid jail time, the DA’s Office announced. Karen Cartagena, 71, will serve two years of probation, complete 400 hours of community service and enroll in a driver safety class.
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Not only do cars not make a city "a city," they make cities worse in almost every possible way.
I love cars. they make a city a city. they add to its vibrancy, health and wealth.
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First comment of Callagy’s tonight that I disagree with. He says none of in this room created this situation, but that we’re trying to fix it. On the contrary, the people in this room, and people like them, are the entire reason we have a crisis to begin with.
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California's housing crisis explained in one image
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From last night's piece on rents by John Oliver: a large institutional landlord tells us that they can charge such high prices because vacancy rates are super low, and people have nowhere else to go. Rents are high because there's a supply shortage, folks! Internalize this!
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Obama, in prime time, goes full YIMBY on housing at the DNC and gets massive applause: "We need to chart a new way forward. we need to build more units & clear away some of the outdated laws & regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people."
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TIL: Steph Curry has apparently "been following along with the housing element update" in the affluent Bay Area suburb of Atherton, and opposes rezoning to allow a single-family mansion to become 16 townhomes due to concerns of "both privacy and safety" 😭. h/t @angelaswartz
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In case you haven't heard the joyous news, there's a new 17 story apartment project in Palo Alto being proposed under the builder's remedy, and it absolutely rules.
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Schrodinger's Luxury Apartment: built by greedy developers to reap massive profits, but also somehow vacant and unoccupied.
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RUNNING OUT OF LAND: The Las Vegas Valley could run out of land to build houses in as little as eight years, and this is definitely cause for concern, the leader of the region’s homebuilders association said.
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This is a great reminder for Dems that building more multifamily housing in blue state high cost urban metros isn't just a moral good, it's a political necessity.
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Never has this been more accurate than today
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80% of New Yorkers take transit. Congestion Pricing will reduce emissions + pollution, improve air quality, and fund the subway system that the vast majority of New Yorkers rely on. You're killing it to placate wealthy suburbanites who drive. Don't pretend it's anything else.
We’re addressing affordability and the cost of living in New York. Watch:
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Next audience question: “County Manager Callagy, do you care about our children? They are our future.”. Again, this is the rhetoric being used to oppose housing for the homeless . 🙃🙃🙃.
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@abiggerinfinity Given the way the liberal/progressive left seems to have been blown out all over the country, I really don't think that would have helped much if at all.
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Maybe the single biggest fuckup of the Bay Area Left in the last 40 years was misidentifying tech workers as the cause of the housing crisis rather than the true culprits: affluent homeowners.
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Former U.S. President Barack “Based” Obama on zoning and NIMBYism: “the most liberal communities in the country aren’t that liberal when it comes to affordable housing”
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Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (@StephenCurry30) named 2022-23 #SocialJusticeChampion, receiving the Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Trophy, for his work to foster equity, create access to opportunity, drive voter engagement and build community safety. $100,000 to be donated to
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If you don't want to pay property taxes, fine. But you also don't get police and fire services, a sewer line, garbage pickup, to use local roads or schools or parks, etc. Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society. It's that simple.
I’m 30 years old & I can’t grasp property taxes. So like even if the house is paid off in full…the government still owns the plot of land that the house is on? LMAO🤣🥴.
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Someone else: whats the likelihood of the Homekey application being approved? Will you withdraw this Homekey application to help us?. County Exec Callagy: no. Based.
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Commercial to residential conversions: expectation vs reality
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County Exec Callagy is explaining that permanent supportive housing projects like this are exempt from environmental review under state law. We love to hear it!.
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A housing project in San Francisco getting *taller* and adding *more* new homes after neighbors fought the development? We absolutely love to see it!
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Why America has a housing crisis in one picture
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Next question: why are you placing a homeless shelter in Millbrae when Millbrae has no homeless problem?. The question after that: how can you do this when the sheriff can't handle the homeless problem as it is?. Author's note: incredible juxtaposition here.
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I would build 400,000 additional dwelling units right here
@cafedujord you should get out a map of California and mark on the map where YOU would build 400,000 additional dwelling units.
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Final tweet on this: an enormous thank you to County Exec Callagy and all our extraordinary county staff who're working so hard to make this project happen. Despite incredible pressure and endless vitriol, they remain steadfast. Grateful for their service and leadership!.
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San Jose, the third largest city in California and the tenth largest in the US, voted *unanimously* tonight to eliminate parking minimums citywide!. This is a huge win for the city's climate + affordability goals, and an incredible Overton Window shift. Couldn't be more proud!.
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Anyway, just gonna say this: next time you hear someone say the Green New Deal or the Infrastructure Package are "too expensive," tell them to fuck off. This is the alternative.
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The San Francisco Board of Supervisors used an environmental law signed by Ronald Reagan to stall a union-backed apartment project on a Nordstrom's parking lot, citing concerns about shadows and gentrification. This sentence is both entirely accurate and completely insane.
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i don’t know a single person who had their student loans cancelled.
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Something has gone terribly, terribly wrong if a new 6 mile subway line with 4 stops costs $12.2 billion and takes 13 years to complete, and as a transit advocate, you have a duty ask why and demand better
New cost estimate for BART to SV $9.3bn->$12.2bn . New completion date 2034–>2036. Big setbacks for one of the country’s largest transit projects.
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County exec Callagy: housing the homeless is the responsibility of every city and town in this county. Overwhelming boos.
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If you're understandably upset about climate change this week, a reminder of why it's happening, where oil company profits come from, and that changing the design of our cities is a huge part of the solution
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When you're California Governor Gavin Newsom facing a serious recall attempt
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Next question: how do we vote to stop this project?. Author’s note: you do not.
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Fantastic comments from Pete Buttiegeig today. Highlights:. 1) Healthy introspection is starting to happen on how Dems get in our own way, especially on housing (& clean energy, transit, etc.). 2) In trying to prevent bad things, Dems have made it harder to deliver good things
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I'm an AHIMBY -- Affordable Housing In My Back Yard (I don't have a backyard though) -- not a "NIMBY.".
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The Bay Area has a housing crisis because people like Diane have shaped public policy here for the last 50+ years.
Diane and her late husband moved to the Bay Area over 30 years ago. Since then, she has watched the area change: “It’s overcrowded now. It used to be lovely, you know — you had space, you had no traffic. Here it was absolutely a gorgeous place."
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Next commenter is very worried that the unhoused people who move in to the project might get $100,000k tech jobs, not report it, and then get very low income housing and cheat the system. Reader, once again, I am screaming (internally).
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We’re on to public comments/questions now. Someone from a nearby HOA wants to know how this will affect their property values, street safety, etc. Because of course.
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I missed my 8 year anniversary with my long-distance, immunocompromised partner two weeks ago, so yeah, I'm a little salty about Governor Antoinette dining maskless at the French Laundry.
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Looks like the Millbrae residents found my thread 😂. For the record: I couldn't care less about how affluent you are as long as you're not blocking new housing! And I'm not villifying anyone here -- they're taking care of that all on their own!.
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Someone else asks why Millbrae is the only option for homekey projects. Author’s note: there are more than half a dozen other homekey projects throughout the county in other cities.
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Next question: can’t you house homeless people in the rural areas of California instead? Why should they live here?. Woof.
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Kamala gives a full throated YIMBY message on ending the housing shortage tonight, to thunderous applause:. “For years we have heard excuses about why America can’t build enough housing. Enough with the excuses, I’m gonna cut the red tape…to speed up building and get it done!"
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What do we want? Housing for the homeless!. When do we want it? After an exhaustive and yearslong community input process that caters to the concerns of businesses and homeowners!. Where do we want it? Somewhere else!.
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This is actually a fantastic example of why relying on "community input" is a such a terrible way to create public policy.
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@michaelcoyote I'm in my early 30s now and would move into one of these in a heartbeat if they existed here.
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Drivers when the state tells them that they're going to make them drive the speed limit
This is where liberals lose me entirely. I will become a Qanon MAGA voter before I accept this shit. I will move to Baghdad before I live in a state where the government controls the speed of my car.
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Multifamily housing is prohibited on 94% of land in San Jose. The city has not been "torn apart" by luxury condos.
My hometown has been torn apart by luxury condos, rising rent, land owned by tech companies. San Jose has the highest number of unhoused of gen-z youth, 85 for every 100,000 residents who will now be forcibly swept from encampments.
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Next question: what is the county doing to get rid of the homeless coming to Millbrae on BART?. First:🤮🤮🤮. Second: this entire meeting is about a project to house many of those very people, and you’re screaming about it!.
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A woman opposing a 100% affordable housing project in Moss Beach just claimed that new residents would be unfamiliar with wildlife and risk having their children snatched by coyotes and cougars as a reason to deny the project.
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Palo Alto Councilmember: these evil developers want to tear down our single-family homes and replace them with "unaffordable" apartments!. The single-family homes in question:
All over California, developers are working overtime to tear down single family homes and replace them with multi-story, multi-unit buildings – most of which are unaffordable to the people who need housing most.
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HUGE news: California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed #AB2097, eliminating parking requirements for new housing projects within a half mile of public transit stops *statewide*!. This is what actual leadership on housing affordability and climate policy looks like!.
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Housing preferences: revealed vs stated
Planners' preference for urban density should not supersede Americans' preferences for suburban or exurban living.
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Why young people feel like this: the housing supply crisis is wiping out economic gains. My dad turned 26 in 1980. 5 years later, he and my mom bought a house for $150k in our nice Bay Area suburb. The house is now worth $2,000,000. Completely out of reach for my generation.
People who turned 25 in 1980, with 12% inflation and 7% employment and a recession bearing down on them, were not automatically being lifted into easy middle-class prosperity. The youthful belief that previous generations lived in some kind of economic paradise is a false memory.
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Other large blue state governors to their constituents right now
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People mobbing Supervisor Pine in the aftermath of the meeting. One woman told him he will be directly responsible when the first child gets molested by an unhoused person from this project. Unbelievably awful.
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New comment: where is the environmental impact report?! . 🙃🙃🙃.
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Nothing better than hearing comfortably housed suburban homeowners hoot and holler for hours on end about a new apartment complex in their high resource neighborhood only to have the city planner tell them that the project is protected by state law and can't be denied 😎.
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San Francisco socialists when laws fought for and passed by YIMBYs to increase height/density (AB1763) and streamline the permitting process (SB35) directly result in new 100% affordable housing
730 Stanyan is 100% affordable and looking great! Thank you for the 160 new homes, Dean Preston!
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This you bro?
If you believe in keeping NYC NYC and not just a mecca of luxury apartment buildings, please sign our petition and chip in. A little goes a long way.
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Idiot leftists: Donald Trump is a YIMBY. Donald Trump himself: the Woke Left is trying to destroy our suburbs by ending single-family zoning and building lots of new apartments, elect me and I will stop them!
What the hell are you talking about? You guys had THE yimby poster boy in the white house for 4 years. Dude was Mr. Upzone, Master Developer, Go-bankrupt-building-luxuy-condos himself.
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County Executive Mike Callagy is doing yeoman's work right now, trying to explain functional zero, and how our lack of affordable housing in San Mateo County and extremely high incomes mean our area is unaffordable to most, and is pushing people into homelessness.
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In the last 48 hours, CA Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed legislation to:. - decriminalize jaywalking.- expand access to governmental meetings by letting the public comment remotely.- provide legal aid to those facing eviction. What the fuck is going on in Sacramento?!.
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Since San Francisco is apparently back on this nonsense (rejecting plans to turn parking lots into apartments) due to affordability concerns, I am once again asking: how many affordable homes does the parking lot currently provide?
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The creators of California's proposition system be like
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I'm not a fan of billionaire space tourism, but you literally opposed an apartment building on the grounds that it would impact the "unique character" of your affluent neighborhood, so maybe sit this one out?.
Who else thinks keeping people housed on Earth is more important than billionaire space tourism?.
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Ah, we’ve got our first “we pay taxes!” comment. Then “how many supervisors live in cities with Homekey projects. Author’s note: pretty sure it’s at least 3?.
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Tim Walz embraces YIMBYism and building more housing during the VP debate: "12% more houses in Minneapolis, prices went down on rent. It's working!"
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The crowd is rowdy and angry, booing the County Exec until he’s drowned out completely. Multiple times.
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Happy Tuesday, folks! I’m spending my evening at a council meeting in the Bay Area suburb of Menlo Park (average home value $2.6M), home of Facebook, where a battle is brewing over an item to convert 3 downtown parking lots into affordable housing. Grab your🍿, 🧵starts here!.
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Some background on Millbrae: it's home to SFO, and has, like many cities in San Mateo County, a very high median household income ($141k/year, specifically). Also like many other cities in San Mateo County, they've built very little housing in the last decade.
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"Kamala has a plan to build 3,000,000 new homes. and I'm going to everything I can to make sure that not one of them is in Atherton"
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