Bobby Garrity
@bobbygarrity.bsky.social
Here to build great cities
📍Downtown Los Angeles
📍Downtown Los Angeles
Pinned
Ugh. I hate being sick. I wonder if this is how old people feel all the time
December 22, 2025 at 4:44 AM
Ugh. I hate being sick. I wonder if this is how old people feel all the time
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
Sometimes you just have to look a nice 78yo left-liberal white lady in the eye at the Hanukkah party and say “no, there is no upper limit to how many people can live in the Bay Area; and I believe that we are morally called to welcome the stranger, which means being ok with neighborhood change.”
December 22, 2025 at 3:18 AM
Sometimes you just have to look a nice 78yo left-liberal white lady in the eye at the Hanukkah party and say “no, there is no upper limit to how many people can live in the Bay Area; and I believe that we are morally called to welcome the stranger, which means being ok with neighborhood change.”
These are dark times we're living in.
December 22, 2025 at 2:28 AM
These are dark times we're living in.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
“The City must fast track the review and approval of Builder's Remedy projects.” 👀
🚨 🚨 🚨
“Today’s decision effectively puts an end to [Huntington Beach’s] policy of blocking affordable housing for its residents.”
“Today’s decision effectively puts an end to [Huntington Beach’s] policy of blocking affordable housing for its residents.”
Attorney General Bonta and Governor Newsom Secure Major Win in State’s Housing Lawsuit Against Huntington Beach
Today’s victory comes on the heels of last week’s decision by the Supreme Court of California denying the City’s petition for review OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta and Governor Gavin ...
oag.ca.gov
December 20, 2025 at 3:08 PM
“The City must fast track the review and approval of Builder's Remedy projects.” 👀
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
Despite the devastating cost on lives Trump 2 has caused, making it clear to American liberals that the forgive and forget mentality of Bidenism was only rewarded with humiliation, should radicalize Democrats into unapologetic and ruthless defenders of liberal democracy.
December 20, 2025 at 7:09 PM
Despite the devastating cost on lives Trump 2 has caused, making it clear to American liberals that the forgive and forget mentality of Bidenism was only rewarded with humiliation, should radicalize Democrats into unapologetic and ruthless defenders of liberal democracy.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
Being correct is an often overlooked advantage in politics
I think there's a lot to this but honestly in my opinion the underlying dynamic that makes Zohran friendly to YIMBY orgs is just that he's heard the case for increased housing supply and agrees with it
One big takeaway from Mamdani bringing YIMBYs into his transition is that advocates can often gain a lot of power by
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
December 20, 2025 at 6:12 AM
Being correct is an often overlooked advantage in politics
Tired: Housing abundance for economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and ending the horrific moral failure that is homelessness
Wired: Housing abundance to get laid
Wired: Housing abundance to get laid
Conservative anti-urbanism has always been in large part about social and sexual control, particularly of women. In small towns you can be shamed for having socially-unapproved sex. In a large, anonymous city with cheap housing, you can have multiple partners without judgment or social consequence.
I think on some level conservative NIMBYs oppose more housing because they dislike the idea of young people having more choices in how their lives are going to unfold
December 20, 2025 at 12:21 AM
Tired: Housing abundance for economic prosperity, environmental sustainability, and ending the horrific moral failure that is homelessness
Wired: Housing abundance to get laid
Wired: Housing abundance to get laid
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
i have been thinking a bit about how any political program that requires the premise of “america bad” is a dead end
December 19, 2025 at 12:21 AM
i have been thinking a bit about how any political program that requires the premise of “america bad” is a dead end
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
once you realize many electeds come into office with a) the genuine desire to do good but b) not a ton of policy experience across the breadth of their portfolio and c) a degraded institutional structure, it becomes clear how this creates an opening for the advocate with a white paper and a smile
December 19, 2025 at 7:58 PM
once you realize many electeds come into office with a) the genuine desire to do good but b) not a ton of policy experience across the breadth of their portfolio and c) a degraded institutional structure, it becomes clear how this creates an opening for the advocate with a white paper and a smile
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
One big takeaway from Mamdani bringing YIMBYs into his transition is that advocates can often gain a lot of power by
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
December 19, 2025 at 7:43 PM
One big takeaway from Mamdani bringing YIMBYs into his transition is that advocates can often gain a lot of power by
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
1.) having useful answers to questions and accurate information
2.) being reasonably polite and pleasant to elected officials
3.) understanding the actual mechanics of government
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
It sucks how anti-housing construction LA can be because I think they have the highest concentration of creative architects in California.
I can't recall the last time I saw a project in LA that turned out so close to its renderings! la.urbanize.city/post/apartme...
December 19, 2025 at 5:39 PM
It sucks how anti-housing construction LA can be because I think they have the highest concentration of creative architects in California.
Disincorporate the cities.
Gaddis motions to approve the resolution to deny the request for a Coastal Development Permit. Hazeltine seconds.
The Commission unanimously passes. The applicant's permit is denied.
A dream (of 49 new homes) is denied, or perhaps deferred. What next from here? Appeal? Lawsuit? Builder's remedy?
The Commission unanimously passes. The applicant's permit is denied.
A dream (of 49 new homes) is denied, or perhaps deferred. What next from here? Appeal? Lawsuit? Builder's remedy?
December 19, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Disincorporate the cities.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
People who are fundamentally opposed to neighborhood change will employ any plausible-sounding and socially-acceptable argument against new housing.
If you attempt to address their stated concerns, they will immediately shift to a different argument because they are not operating in good faith.
If you attempt to address their stated concerns, they will immediately shift to a different argument because they are not operating in good faith.
A *huge* part of discourse is that there are certain objections to change that are coded as socially acceptable, even when they're the opposite of reality and standing in for the true agenda (plain old NIMBYism). School stuff is one of those items (others include affordability and trees).
These people are living in retirement communities and don’t even know it. It’s incredible. Student enrollment has fallen off a cliff all over coastal communities. Marin county’s median age is as old as Japan!
December 18, 2025 at 3:01 PM
People who are fundamentally opposed to neighborhood change will employ any plausible-sounding and socially-acceptable argument against new housing.
If you attempt to address their stated concerns, they will immediately shift to a different argument because they are not operating in good faith.
If you attempt to address their stated concerns, they will immediately shift to a different argument because they are not operating in good faith.
Well the screens on this @metrolosangeles.bsky.social A Line car are frozen so I just freaked the fuck out thinking I got on the wrong train
December 19, 2025 at 5:54 AM
Well the screens on this @metrolosangeles.bsky.social A Line car are frozen so I just freaked the fuck out thinking I got on the wrong train
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
As with underpriced fire insurance, the bill for Prop 13 is coming due. Cities were able to stave it off with Mello-Roos on new development at first, then with local sales and parcel taxes, but the bill is coming. The only things that could fix this are repealing Prop 13 or a lot of new development.
Someone requested this alternate graphic: total tax, by year built, for all residential structures in Berkeley. In terms of local property/parcel tax yield, the five years from 2020-2024 amount to more revenue than all the buildings built during the thirty years 1970-1999.
December 19, 2025 at 12:20 AM
As with underpriced fire insurance, the bill for Prop 13 is coming due. Cities were able to stave it off with Mello-Roos on new development at first, then with local sales and parcel taxes, but the bill is coming. The only things that could fix this are repealing Prop 13 or a lot of new development.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
It's deeply unintuitive and unsatisfying to people that shipping a piece of food 100 miles by truck emits like 100x as much carbon as shopping it 10,000 miles on a container ship does
December 18, 2025 at 10:15 PM
It's deeply unintuitive and unsatisfying to people that shipping a piece of food 100 miles by truck emits like 100x as much carbon as shopping it 10,000 miles on a container ship does
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
Like you could open a factory that does nothing except fill swimming pools with water and vaporize them with a high powered laser and it would still somehow be a net water savings if the land you built it on replaced an almond farm.
December 18, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Like you could open a factory that does nothing except fill swimming pools with water and vaporize them with a high powered laser and it would still somehow be a net water savings if the land you built it on replaced an almond farm.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
All you really need to understand about water usage in the western United States is that every single use - even the ones that sound egregiously wasteful like AI data centers - rounds down to 0 compared to what irrigated agriculture uses
December 18, 2025 at 3:48 PM
All you really need to understand about water usage in the western United States is that every single use - even the ones that sound egregiously wasteful like AI data centers - rounds down to 0 compared to what irrigated agriculture uses
Months ago I asked ChatGPT to design some skyscrapers for LA. This one was always quite memorable:
December 17, 2025 at 11:31 PM
Months ago I asked ChatGPT to design some skyscrapers for LA. This one was always quite memorable:
Garritism: Liberal cosmopolitan techno humanist urbanist abundance progressivism rooted in the equality of all people with ethical imperialism and the complete rejection of all ethno-nationalism and the forceful destruction of racism
Nate Silver thinks every poster he doesn't like has their own distinct political ideology, so we need to get ahead of him by defining those ideologies.
Resnikoffianism: Social democratic cosmopolitanism + small-r republican virtue ethics
Resnikoffianism: Social democratic cosmopolitanism + small-r republican virtue ethics
December 17, 2025 at 9:47 PM
Garritism: Liberal cosmopolitan techno humanist urbanist abundance progressivism rooted in the equality of all people with ethical imperialism and the complete rejection of all ethno-nationalism and the forceful destruction of racism
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
Simply getting the state to socialize all that risk is not an alternative to substantially reducing the risk. If you do the former without the latter, you're basically hamstringing the state and penalizing low-income Californians who live outside the WUI.
This is what passes for progressivism and climate policy in California. Jane Kim’s answer for elevated fire risk and actuarial risk? Put it on the public dime. Urban renters should bail out well to do exurban property owners and landlords in fire zones. FAIR plan is already a ticking time bomb!
December 16, 2025 at 4:52 PM
Simply getting the state to socialize all that risk is not an alternative to substantially reducing the risk. If you do the former without the latter, you're basically hamstringing the state and penalizing low-income Californians who live outside the WUI.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
People very much DO choose to buy homes in fire prone areas. They should have to pay the financial cost of insuring those homes against fire.
Forcing people who live in South LA to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize mansion owners in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills is deeply regressive.
Forcing people who live in South LA to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize mansion owners in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills is deeply regressive.
December 16, 2025 at 5:08 PM
People very much DO choose to buy homes in fire prone areas. They should have to pay the financial cost of insuring those homes against fire.
Forcing people who live in South LA to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize mansion owners in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills is deeply regressive.
Forcing people who live in South LA to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize mansion owners in Malibu and the Hollywood Hills is deeply regressive.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
There is a solid argument for risk pooling and community pricing for health insurance: none of us choose to be born disabled or get sick, so it’s not fair to force individuals to shoulder the entire financial burden for the medical care they need to live.
This is not the case for home insurance.
This is not the case for home insurance.
December 16, 2025 at 5:08 PM
There is a solid argument for risk pooling and community pricing for health insurance: none of us choose to be born disabled or get sick, so it’s not fair to force individuals to shoulder the entire financial burden for the medical care they need to live.
This is not the case for home insurance.
This is not the case for home insurance.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
I don’t think it is progressive to force urban homeowners like me who live in fire-safe areas to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize people who choose to live in McMansions in places with very high fire risk.
This is what passes for progressivism and climate policy in California. Jane Kim’s answer for elevated fire risk and actuarial risk? Put it on the public dime. Urban renters should bail out well to do exurban property owners and landlords in fire zones. FAIR plan is already a ticking time bomb!
December 16, 2025 at 5:08 PM
I don’t think it is progressive to force urban homeowners like me who live in fire-safe areas to pay higher home insurance premiums to subsidize people who choose to live in McMansions in places with very high fire risk.
Reposted by Bobby Garrity
I don't think it's sophistry, I think it's the central creed of American small-r republicanism, and the MAGA regime's rejection of that creed marks them as a sort of infection on the body politic.
okay, this is going to sound like bumper sticker sophistry, but:
we don't have "a people" here--we have "the People"
we don't have "a people" here--we have "the People"
December 16, 2025 at 6:30 PM
I don't think it's sophistry, I think it's the central creed of American small-r republicanism, and the MAGA regime's rejection of that creed marks them as a sort of infection on the body politic.