Zak Yudhishthu
@zyudhishthu
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Sidewalk enthusiast. Formerly a Saint Paulite, sometimes writing about housing in the Twin Cities. Nowadays I’m an econ research assistant in Chicago
Chicago
Joined August 2016
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What really happened when Minneapolis upzoned its neighborhoods in the 2040 Plan? We didn't get a lot of duplexes and triplexes, but rezonings enabled a lot more housing than you might think in low-density neighborhoods.
My new article at
@metroabundance
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Where you can walk to a supermarket, public school, coffee shop and transit stop in the Twin Cities
Today I'm launching Close, an interactive map that shows walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly neighborhoods across every block in the United States. Try it out:
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I suppose I should share my big life update: I’ve graduated from Macalester, and I’m moving to Chicago to work as a research assistant at the Federal Reserve starting in July!
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My roommate and I call it the Curse of the Twin Cities that a drive to anywhere in Minneapolis takes 10-20 minutes while the transit ride takes 45-90 min. Hopefully that starts to change soon
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Once upon a time: you could train from Chicago to the Twin Cities in a little over 6 hrs, beating the Borealis by an hour
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I am definitely entertained by the developer who built two identical four-story stickplexes on Grand Avenue, one directly adjacent to Macalester and the other directly adjacent to St. Thomas
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There's been a lot of speculation that removing parking minimums was key for Minneapolis's housing affordability, but limited evidence. Here's some, showing the entire distribution of parking/unit ratios shifting downwards in new Minneapolis buildings over the past decade.
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IMO, the most important result from Minnesota's new poll on housing affordability issues: Twice as many people say "building more homes and bringing down housing costs " is more important than keeping local regulatory control
Minnesota voters prioritize building more housing, want legislature to take action
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Over one year, 7 out of 16 Met Council Members literally never took transit. Only 5 members took it more than 10 times. 🥴
The current Metropolitan Council members have been in office for a little over a year now. Members can ride transit in the Twin Cities for free with their ID badges, so I submitted a data request to see how often they rode in the past year.
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Gonna lay off of the summit-posting after this, but this from the Strib commentary section is truly awful.
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@TheNewLou
It's really not comparable to cars for every trip. The problems with cars include lots of energy, too much space to drive and to park, and tire PM pollution. None of the above for ebikes. By all means, fix land use, but no idea why we shouldn't push ebikes
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1988 Dunn Bros ad in the Mac Weekly, right after the shop opened
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Gen Z may not know this, but there were once coffee shops that only served drip coffee, had a random old couches that were never clean, stayed open until 4am, and their clientele was composed of exclusively college students and recovering alcoholics
And they were awesome
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Recently approved rezoning in St. Paul: this billboard is gonna be replaced with 46 apartment units and 29 parking spots.
Before we eliminated parking minimums, this building would’ve required at least 46 parking spots (1 spot per 1-2 BR unit).
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ICYMI in the legislature’s late-night madness yesterday: Minnesota is requiring a study to consider allowing single-staircase buildings up to 75 feet tall.
Initiating a big win for more and better housing in our state
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At the Minnesota Legislature, AARP has signed on in support of legalizing missing middle housing and ADUs across much of the state.
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Gotta give credit to the cathedral of St. Paul for being a nice looking little building
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One month ago, the Minnetonka mayor co-authored an op-ed saying that suburban cities want affordable housing, but must keep local control.
In Minnetonka, local control looks like denying Habitat for Humanity twinhomes because they'd be out of character with the neighborhood.
Just got this email from one of MCCD's members
@tchabitat
and I'm also shocked, but sadly not surprised. Blocking affordable housing after years of work to get it right + lots of money already spent is not a win
@MinnetonkaMN
.
#mnleg
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In 1973, people in Saint Paul staged a protest because there were too many rats
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Nice little infill set to come on St. Paul's Grand Avenue: 12 housing units with 3 parking spots will replace an older house. Made possible by eliminating parking minimums!
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Saint Paul is just 49% white, which you REALLY wouldn't know from walking around Macalester-Groveland
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The latest in our neighborhood facebook: don't stop for pedestrians at the college campus! You will disrupt other drivers.
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Everybody get your hammers out asap. We’re going on a triplex-building rampage in Minneapolis
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has reversed the District Court's injunction against the Minneapolis 2040 plan.
The appellate court found that the injunction was based on legal error, was unsupported by the record, and imposed unnecessary hardship on the city.
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@nominalthoughts
Get real, no one asks you this, they just ask about the stock market and inflation
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Wow, even Saint Paul’s Grand Ave is too dangerous these days! I guess it’s got too many coffee shops
@FrederickMelo
Yeah what has kept people from going to grand ave is the crime. I won’t go there. It’s not the hottest spot but it’s not with risking it these days.
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New map and quick story today: check out the duplexes and triplexes built in Minneapolis since the 2040 Plan passed
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@ddayen
No matter how you do it, the subprime bubble was of course very bad for housing supply. But here's another way to slice this data that tells a pretty different story. I don't really get why, tho
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Excellent story on how brand new, potentially pricey housing opens up housing across a metro area through "migration chains." The new residents of these apartments leave behind more affordable places, making more housing available — including in pretty low-income neighborhoods
How can new market-rate apartments create housing opportunities across metro areas? Read
@tyler_boesch
,
@EconHembre
, & Ben Horowitz's primer on “filtering”—the concept that new housing units create vacancies that prompt a beneficial chain of moves.
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Hate to say it, but the Minneapolis skyway is cool and fun as a non-Minnesotan native… sorry to all the local urbanists out there
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Great story on the potential for old strip malls to become homes for people. Note that Rachel highlights regulatory barriers as one of the biggest challenges with making this work!
MN is currently discussing statewide zoning policies that would address exactly this issue.
What if we converted all those vacant, decrepit strip malls around the country into new housing? 🏠
I wrote about the idea, which is not far-fetched at all
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Amazing! No more bad faith lawsuits against cities that try to plan for more housing (as happened with the 2040 Plan)
Woo-hoo! MN Senate just passed a bill to end the Minneapolis 2040 lawsuit & protect cities from similar litigation. On a 34-14 vote, "Comp Plan Clarity" is on its way to the Governor!
#mnleg
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Everybody's been focused on crime in light rail trains and platforms. But that's not the only thing to pay attention to!
Today,
@WestSarahE
and I discuss the importance of improving the station areas, some of which are full of urban disamenities.
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Last week, the Strib ran a commentary arguing that zoning reform won't help housing affordability, because the root problem to affordability is high construction costs. Today, I respond in an LTE that zoning IS a factor driving costs, in ways that proposed reforms aim to fix.
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As a liberal arts college in a city, Macalester can promise you three things: Saint Paul’s lively and vibrant downtown, the state capitol, and a sculpture of a cherry on a spoon
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Excited to see a few words of mine in
@StarTribune
today in response to some mistaken beliefs from St. Paulites opposed to housing in Highland Park.
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Cool poster against Minneapolis urban renewal projects in the 1970s.
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I’m excited to have won a first place award from the MN Society of Professional Journalists for editorials on urban policy and housing costs, shared with my coauthor Joe Harrington!
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As someone who rents a single-family home from an LLC, I think this bill deserves a more nuanced conversation about tradeoffs, which unfortunately you won't get if the only people who speak against it are the Minnesota Realtors.
A bill proposed in the state Legislature would limit the number of single-family homes a corporation could purchase and rent.
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Edging more towards the completely impractical, i now bring you downtown Minneapolis... but skyways are replaced by an elevated monorail
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Featuring highland bridge on the thumbnail 🫡
Minneapolis has seen an increase in affordable apartments and condos, thanks to steps such as eliminating zoning that allowed only single-family homes
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Not here to comment on rideshare, but — this session, many advocated for MN to preempt exclusionary housing policy in suburbs, an effort that struggled due to anti-preemption arguments.
The politics of preemption are complicated. I respectfully disagree with CM Chugtai here.
1. Preemption is bad. Period. Any and all attempts to undermine local control are bad. It’s a Republican and corporate tactic used around the country. Watching our
@GovTimWalz
cave to multibillion dollar corporations in insisting on preempting Minneapolis is gross.
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Check out Minneapolis, building more housing than some slow-growth coastal backwaters
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@pschofie79
If you haven't read it already, I definitely recommend
@rmc031
's long read on these kinds of solutions for homelessness
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The real lesson here is to change the street design around our campus. And you can help do that by filling out this survey on changing Grand Avenue’s design:
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Today in accidentally sad pro-St. Paul advertising...
It’s beautiful out. It’s Friday. It’s time for
#HappyHour
in downtown StPL. 😍🥳 Where are you going? 🥂
🎥 Video taken at Wrestaurant at the Palace!
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I'm glad we're experimenting with guaranteed income in St. Paul.
But I'm a bit befuddled by the coverage that this particular study is receiving, based on the results it reports.
Saint Paul is proof
#guaranteedincome
works. It works to increase employment, improve access to better housing, and boost quality of life. New data from our People's Prosperity Pilot study confirms it works to help people take charge of their future. (1/2)
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There’s a group of people in St. Paul politics who are simply the worst. But I take solace in their total lack of political power and effectiveness
“You’re repeating the mistakes done to the Rondo neighborhood, the mistakes done to the Dakota people.” And
#MAGA
money is involved, says this guy…(Note: Arena will not physically displace any low-income residents. A gym was torn down)
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On a major Saint Paul street with a rapid bus under construction, a prominent bike lane, and key bridge access to Minneapolis, you might think that replacing this older house to build these townhomes would be easy... but of course it's not.
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@jmwooldridge
And yet this problem is far less severe than the problem of remembering Type I and Type II errors
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What in the world will happen to the villager when Jane McClure one day retires?
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People got mad at the tweet suggesting we stop allowing new drive throughs, saying they are quite convenient for drivers (true enough). But I suppose people should consider that convenience for drivers can have tradeoffs against the many other ways people experience urban life
Of all the bizarre things that people obsess about “too many drive throughs” is one of the oddest.
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Crazy house in Summit Hill. That neighborhood is totally full of gems
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During 4 yrs at your liberal arts college, you face ~5-10% odds of seeing your college become part of the national culture wars. Despite a few close calls, Macalester has thus far avoided such a situation
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Things really can get better!
Jeremy is of course right that this Grand Ave intersection at Macalester is crying out for a raised crosswalk — which is exactly the city's current plan, with construction set to begin this summer (tho the crosswalks are set to be built summer 2025)
My alma mater has a few of these cursed crossings between the dorms and the rest of campus.
This would be the perfect place for raised crosswalks, and I’m a little shocked St. Paul hasn’t installed them in the 20 years I’ve known this spot.
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Always tweet with caution 👎
During 4 yrs at your liberal arts college, you face ~5-10% odds of seeing your college become part of the national culture wars. Despite a few close calls, Macalester has thus far avoided such a situation
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@michael_wiebe
Okay, but you only made net 1 new unit available, cause the person has filled it.
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Poor Fred, look what happens when a St Paul-specific tweet achieves terminal velocity on The Internet
Is there a polite way to tell a coffee shop clerk/owner “I and probably others would work remotely from your fine establishment if the music was lower, but I can’t hear myself think, let alone do phone interviews and Zoom calls here”?
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No way... they went biblical about the parking spots
Going back to TC drama… literally embarrassing activities from the Mac Groveland old whites
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Had a fun time chatting zoning in St. Paul with
@WedgeLIVE
.
Today on the Wedge LIVE podcast:
@zyudhishthu
on the surprisingly boring end to single-family zoning in St. Paul, five years after a similar effort in Minneapolis (still tied up in court by pretend environmentalists). Where are the breathless yard signs?
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I'm excited to have a brief story up on the
@metroabundance
blog about the success of ending parking mandates in Minneapolis — a lesson that more cities should learn from.
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Of course, I’m excited about this, but I also must laugh… the way people get credit for policies is quite interesting.
Legislators and advocates pushed for single stair, Walz signed a giant omnibus that included the bill… what does he know about single stair? No idea.
Governor Walz signed legislation last year directing code officials to legalize single stair, point access block apartments up to 75 by 2026.
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Been in MN for four years. Still forget how transformative and wonderful the summer is
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I'll be honest, I'm confused af about why the governor tweeted this, considering that his party has failed to pass any policy to back the development of multifamily housing
This session, we’re backing the development of multifamily housing so that seniors, families, and young people can find a safe and affordable place to call home.
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I knew that growing up would mean things like going to more meetings. I didn't know, however, that growing up would mean doing 2-step verification four times a day
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Two Milanese women at dinner flabbergasted to hear that the Twin Cities rail only comes every 15 minutes
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Protecting car infrastructure on Summit Ave is pretty bad if you care about equity.
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Yesterday, I testified in support of ending parking mins. at a MN senate committee, and legislators got a copy of my
@MNReformer
commentary w/ this graph. But I talked about this graph a little bit differently than I previously have in the testimony
Representing
@SustainStPaul
and
@MoreNeighbors
is
@zyudhishthu
highlighting how MPLS lifted parking mandates yet parking is still built
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Spotted in the Saint Paul public comments: purple comic sans declaration against LEGO LAND buildings like the new fourplex across from Dunn Bros
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It's too bad to see this quote from a DFL leader, and shows that Minnesota zoning reformers still have a lot of work to do.
I do think it'd be helpful to respond to a couple points that Hortman made here, though
DFL leadership says ‘no’ to housing bill that would revoke city zoning controls
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Saint Paul Strava heatmap. I like how clearly you can see the Grand Round on here. And then, no surprise that Summit Ave is the brightest route on here
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If a highway was built in your neighborhood, it's caused a couple of your neighbors to be killed by cars over the past 20 years...
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I believe we just had the chillest, nicest public hearing about zoning for more housing ACROSS THE CITY that has ever happened
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Holy hell. I graduated four days ago and I can no longer access academic journals... rip
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I can't believe how many of my neighbors think that environmentalism is only about preserving trees, while going all-in on car infrastructure
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Today in the Strib, you can read my time-honored message: zoning changes, both local and statewide, really can help address our housing problems.
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Never gets old: flight attendant scanning tickets at the gate is reading the names on the boarding passes, “thanks Mr. Bell, thank you Ms. Swanson.” She scans mine, a moment of hesitation… “thank you very much”
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Wait, stancil is arguing with MN urbanists about building affordable housing in the suburbs? Stopping rich, exclusionary suburbs from blocking affordable housing is a very worthwhile thing IMO. It’s one major reason why we worked on statewide zoning reform this year.
To be clear, I am emphatically in favor of more affordable housing in the suburbs. I absolutely am proposing that. The suburbs exist and the occasional urbanist delusion we can just ignore them causes huge problems
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New anti-summit trail viewpoint: it will be too desirable and popular 👎
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Me and many fellow students in my nbhd would be extremely restricted in our housing options if there weren't single-family homes available to rent. The great majority of lots here are SFHs, and these also represent basically the only 4+ bedroom options for rent anywhere.
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My favorite part of Sustain St. Paul's city council candidate is the last question: "What other urbanism-focused ideas do you have for making Saint Paul a more pleasant, safe, and vibrant place to live, work, and play?"
Ex.,
@mitrajunjalali
wants to have Open Streets St. Paul!
Local election day is around the corner — want to know where city council candidates stand on 9 key housing, transportation, and urbanism-focused questions?
Take a look at Sustain St. Paul's City Council Candidate Questionnaires!
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My new article: a dive into St. Paul’s quietly impactful proposal to shrink minimum lot sizes
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Here's a chance for Saint Paul to say goodbye to drive-throughs, shaping the future of our city for the better! Less drive-throughs would mean far nicer places to walk, and a continued move away from car dependency
Saint Paul has 77 drive-throughs. That's 77 places across our city where cars idle and conflict with sidewalks.
A current city study would consider stricter regulations on drive-throughs — or even a full stop on any new drive-throughs.
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People are allowed to believe that the 2040 Plan should be subject to environmental review (though I think there's better ways to address this issue). But I mean, c'mon, this article simply says false and misleading things with no backing.
OPINION | Carol Becker, Minneapolis college teacher
“Minneapolis did nothing to mitigate the enviro harms of planned massive growth. It just assumed that the health and environment of Minneapolis residents would be sacrificed for the benefits of density.”
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I Pusha di ballo 🤌
As repeatedly reiterated by the ref, pushball was a “non-contact sport”
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Nice read on upcoming reconstruction along Grand Ave, which will include some traffic calming designs and is one of the first major projects funded by the new Saint Paul sales tax.
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Does my willingness to rent a SFH take away someone else's homeownership opportunity? Quite possibly, but does that mean I shouldn't get the option?
And if that's your argument, why not make every duplex be owner-occupied? Why not preference condos in new multifamily bldgs?
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@michael_wiebe
I can’t quite explain it, but this logic doesn’t make sense to me.
If the new units are filled by people vacating new units, it doesn’t mean even more vacated units are being added to the housing supply for an overall higher sum. Cause the brand new units are no longer available
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A lot of those buildings are still very nice and moderately scaled! "Missing middle housing" by any reasonable use of the term. Here's a 10-unit townhome in NE, and a 6-unit public housing project, both enabled by 2040 Plan upzonings.
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TIL: people upset about the new University of Saint Thomas stadium are unsatisfied with a 148-page environmental assessment, and think it needs an even longer environmental review. What's the concern? Parking, of course.
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In an EXTREMELY heartbreaking (to me) turn of events, Walz barely responded to Ezra Klein’s question on Minneapolis’s zoning, the environmental lawsuit against it, and “liberalism that builds.”
This despite the fact that he just signed a bill to end the anti-housing lawsuit!
Walz would be a game-changing VP pic.
Again and again he reads as:
✅Not condescending
✅Actually interested in people's lives
✅Laser focused on substantive policies (food, health, ed) that will reduce daily stress and drag us out of conspiracy land
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