Dan Keshet

#atxurbanists, I've built a starter pack! Please use it to pad out your follows and invite new friends! Also LMK if you are an Austin urbanist not on here, even if urbanism isn't your main bleat area!

As I drove my daughter (6) behind a car that said "Vote Blue" on the rear window, she excitedly proclaims "Vote Bluey!" and now I'm never going to look at it the same.

I love James Talarico but the irony of running an ad that says "Made by humans, not AI" over clearly AI-generated video isn't lost on me.

There is a wonderful literature on the power of cities as an economic engine, like Triumph of the City or The Gated City. But you can also take urban economic gains in the form of free time for creativity and experimentation and that's pretty awesome too!

Splenda headquarters: it's a SUPER sweetener!! Anyone who calls it an artificial sweetener is THE ENEMY!!!

My mother spent the whole day panicked because she saw a $90 deposit from Social Security and thought they had reduced her payments so not sure this election stunt isn't gonna backfire.

Is this one of the first times a state/provincial government has rolled back enacted local YIMBY changes?

They don’t call it the Lone Stair State for nothing.

With Talarico up 51-45 on Paxton, it's safe to declare this race a referendum on Talarico's single stair bill. The majority of Texans are giving a resounding yes to Senator Single Stair.

On the one hand, AI will probably soon be able to cut the cost of a lot of the make-work paperwork cities make developers do to build housing. Have any of my followers used it for that? On the other hand, I expect cities will up the ante to compensate.

Got served this Republican anti-Paxton ad while I watched 🏈. I hope that not only will Paxton lose the election, but I hope his wing of the Texas Republican party loses leverage because of it.

NYC is opening 160 car-free (but treat-filled) streets and plazas to enjoy fun and safe fall festivities this spooky season. Find one near you at nyc.gov/trickorstreets.

This is really fascinating work finding places where AI is useful to scientists.

I never stopped believing in a redistributive state. I have stopped believing that every policy area needs to center redistribution. Bus fares can be about bus service, zoning about housing, taxes about generating funds, and social supports about making sure people are safe and happy.

In the dot com boom, there were 1,000 companies that were just "selling X on the web"(books, music, pet supplies, whatever. In the AI boom, there are three companies in every niche. AI for writing software? OpenAI, Claude, grok. For doing math? The same. For doing biology? The same.

How did Portland's electoral changes affect voter behavior, candidate strategy, and electoral outcomes in 2024? Q+A with Lewis and Clark's Dr. Ellen Seljan:

I'm really fascinated by the arc of prediction markets from something I saw a few wonky econ-oriented people evangelize as a better way to predict to something most policy-oriented people see as a major threat.

I'm a little surprised how small a gap there is between Paxton and Abbott. Perhaps some R-leaning voters just don't care about Paxton's exceptionally shady record and those that do are abandoning Abbott too.

With increasingly correlated elections, I expect some states will see strong Dem performance at the state legislatures. Those races are much less polled.

I remember a lot of tech backlash during the Dot Com boom of the late 90s but this seems way bigger, no?

I'm very curious what the Texas Democratic think tanks are currently planning if Dems win the guv and lite guv races—and how many Dems would we expect in the Texas House and Senate.

The culture contrast is huge. I can't imagine the US military naming an operation after a classical composer, unless it was Wagner perhaps.

The 5' stop signs for the bike lane bring me so much joy

Nate’s got Texas as lean D now:

When we talk about building state capacity, this is one thing we're talking about. Devising, drafting, and testing rules that deliver safe, affordable outcomes is real work! It requires real research! We can't rely on either volunteers or the private sector to do it for us.

"Opt out" legislation is seriously underrated. Action in cities is hard to do, even when there isn't opposition. When cities can do the right thing through inaction, it's much easier.

New analysis on my Substack showing that smaller lots are strongly associated with smaller, more affordable houses. The analysis centers on a place you've probably never heard talked about in the minimum lot size reform conversation: Dallas County, TX. domainexpansion.substack.com/p/smaller-lo...

@alfredtwu.com My niece to my daughter, on seeing your painting on my wall: "Oh, this is pretty! Would you want to live here?!"

While most Americans feel zero enmity toward Canada, we have often treated them as a joke. A little brother who follows our lead. United States Lite. Non-threatening, comically polite. To move past this, we need to not only stop fighting them, but also give more respect to their independence.

One reason I think we'll eventually move toward automated vehicles is that the driving environment is getting more and more distractions.

I highly recommend that any smaller city looking to keep that small city feel immediately work on allowing ADUs and small-plexes *before* prices shoot up high enough to see all your single family houses scraped and replaced with mansions.

Idaho legalized ADUs statewide. Boise is making them easier to build with free pre-approved plans and streamlined permitting. Great case of state reform creating a floor and local leaders raising it. ⬆️

With all these giant corporations creating massive data centers, I'm worried about the fate of our Mom and Pop small data centers on main streets throughout small town America.

Well that's pretty convincing data.

Something I like about UK media is that whenever they get a new Prime Minister, something they've been doing quite a bit of lately, there's a series of "Can the new PM fix the housing crisis?" stories. The answer so far has always turned out to be no, but I appreciate them asking the question.

What the DFW suburbs are doing here is awful but I don't want it to overshadow that the biggest cities in Texas have enacted residential in commercial zones without much fuss, and lots of homes are getting built as a result.

Bike rack situation on the first day of school. Safe routes to schools give kids freedom!

Haven't read El Salvador's national parking reform. The country eliminated parking requirements nationwide.

My daughter's castle comes with an ADU (Accessory Dragon Unit)

Here's my performance plan for California housing: entitle 1500sf or FAR and one dwelling unit per every $100k in land value a residential parcel is assessed at. Stop relying on cities to decide density and start relying on markets.

I don't know Carlton so I'm not picking on him. There's a disconnect in the urbanist movement right now: building code reformers are frustrated we don't do cost-benefit analysis on how much each life saved costs while traffic safety people use the same "lives are immeasurably priceless" logic.