Markus Johnson

"But the anti-development opposition in areas like Lansing is not only about data centers. It also extends to solar farms, battery storage systems, and transmission lines that carry renewable energy to cities." grist.org/elections/wi...

Finals game 12:30 ET on a week day is beyond crazy

Oxford Street. Reimagined.

Nationally, single-family houses have a lot more kids (per 100 units) than multifamily, and rentals have a lot more than owner-occupied homes. But the numbers look very different when you control for householder age and bedroom count, and by location: domainexpansion.substack.com/p/what-kinds...

Free transit activists love to claim that most (or all) of LA Metro's fare revenue is canceled out by collection costs. It's not true.

I created a better Seattleinprogress for tracking construction in Seattle -Image sets for all projects, not just design review -Weekly recap to see updates in the last week -Construction view to see projects (likely) under construction Filter by unit count & more map.aidanthornsberry.com

It's strange that these images are only coming out on some fringe news site and no mainstream outlets have picked them up--especially given how much coverage there was of our withdrawal from Afghanistan under Biden.

Last bullet important here.

Data on sprinkler system reliability. 88% reliability in MN.

Oklahoma is advancing major building code reforms to unlock middle housing; 🪜 allow single-stair up to 4 stories, 🏘️ 4-unit homes can be built under the residential building code rather than the commercial code, 🧯scale sprinkler requirements to small apartments. housingforwardok.org/news/oubcc-a...

They should make a database of everyone who gets mad at a post like this and permanently strip them of their driver’s license

This is precisely the type of building cities like Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles need to allow and *incentivize* in R1 zones if they ever want to end their respective housing shortages.

This video also assumes that people start leaving only once the firefighters arrive (usually 5-6 mins after the fire starts), and not before, which is just totally unrealistic.

I would note that no 4 story apartment building has that many people!

One last thought. There is something broken about the way that a trade association owns the codes and it lobbies and PRs aggressively as I am documenting. The public interest in the codes is smoothied up with the private interests of this particular group. Very very uncomfortable.

I am at the ICC conference in Nashville! Unlike last year's conference, affordability was a constant topic. In just half a day, it came up in three separate contexts (two unforced). Sadly, affordability was only seen as a trojan horse for legislative "encroachment" and commercial interests.

I wrote a thing and did some math. It’s about my little city’s property tax levy, but also about how Washington’s property tax system messes up every city’s basic functions. And how cities can’t fix it, but Oympia can. www.shorelineareanews.com/2026/10/op-e...

Austin grew its housing stock by 10.5% from 2021 to 2025, versus 3.2% nationally. Rents fell from above $1,600 to about $1,300, with the biggest drops in older, cheaper buildings.

Guangzhou do be working those external elevator retrofits.

It might be the best town hall answer… ever? And I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a politician disembowel a questioner like that, over and over, interrogating him even! and still look generous, avoiding even a drop of muck

This CorTen screen wall that allows light and privacy on this compact site! Plus it is the railing for the upper level deck (Today’s tree reg’s would have killed this project-we build very close to a very large tree)

The 2027 IBC has been officially published, and it allows single-stair apartment buildings up to four stories! See the new section 1006.3.3.2 codes.iccsafe.org/content/IBC2...

Every available indicator suggests that our housing reforms are working, but a few short-sighted community members are being duped by vibe-coded NIMBY websites. Read my latest for the @inlander.com:

I don't think most Americans understand yet what a global laggard the USA is turning into here. Media instead told us that electric vehicles were a fad that didn't work.

A housing podcast episode for you education folks! Or those who want to know more the relationship between rental housing and school preferences

I'm listening to this meeting thinking about the city layoffs and budget cuts happening knowing that these staff-supported meetings will keep happening.

This is very much a real thing, I even mentioned it back in the old country in 2023

Why do liberals temperamentally seem incapable of weighing tradeoffs? Like culturally there seems to be this belief that all government policy/programs should serve the needs of every person’s unique use case in all circumstances and if a policy cannot achieve this high bar it is not worth pursuing.

no take only throw

These are the drivers we share the streets with. Caught back to back.

If we need to protect a temporary pedestrian street, what is cheaper? 2 fully equipped SUVS with 4 highly trained uniformed officers (left) or Temporary vehicle barriers (right) I’m a little sensitive to our huge SPD budget and making the best of limited resources.

NFSA is not a small or irrelevant trade group. They are one of the most powerful three industry interests in codes (along with timber and single-family homebuilders). They often sit on single-stair advisory groups, e.g., as directed by Massachusetts' governor: www.mass.gov/doc/eo-651/d...

People will look at you in the eyes and tell you speeding isn’t a big enough problem to justify cameras.

Immigrants are 35% of the construction trades workforce but 18% of the labor force overall—and they’ve accounted for all net growth in the trades since 2013. My new @harvard-jchs.bsky.social brief on the outsized role of immigrants in the trades just dropped: www.jchs.harvard.edu/research-are...

They don’t have incentives anymore for affordable housing or energy efficiency because they got rid of so many regulations. They didn’t want to intentionally down zone to keep them. They decided just to remove barriers for all types of developers.

Based on community feedback, they upzoned around parks and schools, which people identified as essential for community access. MORE OF THIS PLEASE!

if I wanted to build market share for a product I would offer it for more than one year at a time

CODDLED DRIVERS—LAVISHED WITH BILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF INFRASTRUCTURE JUST GIVEN TO THEM WITHOUT ANYONE NEEDING TO LAUNCH AN ADVOCACY CAMPAIGN THAT TAKES ALL OF THEIR TIME ON EVENINGS AND WEEKENDS—EXPECTED TO EXPERIENCE SLIGHT INCONVENIENCE

Global steel prices have normalized from the COVID disruption but American steel prices are only getting more & more deranged thanks to Trump’s protectionism