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gamarad.bsky.social
@gamarad.bsky.social
610 followers 280 following 180 posts
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gamarad.bsky.social
Platner chair retailing for $27,000 Canadian
October 24, 2025 at 3:18 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
That's what I thought but I was looking at it today and the number for the Eglinton Crosstown seems to include both giving it a much higher cost than other sources
transitcosts.com/toronto-egli...
schoolofcities.utoronto.ca/wp-content/u...
October 15, 2025 at 2:42 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
@alonlevy.bsky.social
Have you written anything about the cost-benefit of the lines proposed for the next phase of the Grand Paris Express? I recall that the cost-benefit for some of the lines in the first phase was weak
July 5, 2025 at 4:19 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Seems pretty YIMBY to me but what do I know?
4. What’s one issue in politics that you’ve changed your mind about? The role of the private market in housing construction. How so? I clearly recognize now that there is a very important role to be played, and one that city government must facilitate through the increasing of density around mass transit hubs, the ending of the requirement to build parking lots, as well as the need to up-zone neighborhoods that have historically not contributed to affordable housing production — namely, wealthier neighborhoods. I think all these things, in tandem with a muscular role for the public sector. But that is a changing opinion over time that I’ve been in office.
June 26, 2025 at 1:38 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
June 25, 2025 at 2:17 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Meanwhile, just across county lines:
Q: What kind of prices is the Montgomery County housing authority paying per unit? A: The Laureate was about 400k/unit
June 6, 2025 at 4:55 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
They were also opposed to Good Cause eviction rules
i dont support Good Cause if it means putting Black & Brown neighborhoods under the bus and on the frontlines of more predatory & speculative activity by investors & corporations flooding our communities & exacerbating gentrification & displacement risk by supporting the Compact
May 6, 2025 at 3:38 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
It’s a definite possibility
AND LIMITED TENANT-LANDLORD MEDIATION)
May 6, 2025 at 3:36 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
What do you have against subways?
Jack Layton, then a young alderman, led downtown resistance to the relief line in the 1980s. He argued that the suburbs needed to be developed into their own self-sufficient communities. Making it easier to get downtown would only bring more people into the delicate ecosystem that was the old city of Toronto.
April 28, 2025 at 5:04 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
David Brooks Social Democrat
April 18, 2025 at 4:39 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
Or at least 100 million
Doug Saunders Maximum Canada: Toward a Country of 100 Million
April 9, 2025 at 1:23 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
Picture of Phil Verster with the caption: "Verster: ‘Well, Well, Well, Not So Easy To Find A Metrolinx CEO That Doesn’t Suck Shit, Huh?’"
March 24, 2025 at 9:10 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
960k as a lower bound
Slow Boring Matthew Yglesias TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PAID SUBSCRIBERS • US$8/MONTH
March 24, 2025 at 9:01 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Bad enough to outweigh this?
www.zohranfornyc.com/policies/hou...
Increasing zoned capacity. This will allow housing supply to meet New York’s demand for both mixed-income and permanently affordable housing in areas that have historically not contributed to citywide housing goals—including those cut out of City of Yes. Supporting climate sustainability and accessibility. By encouraging growth around subway stations and other public transit hubs across New York City, we will create a greener city. Eliminating parking minimums. The City should be building housing, not parking lots.
March 24, 2025 at 5:20 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
What if we call the houses Federal Infrastructure?
@housingnowto.bsky.social
@HousingNowTO As the CN Tower was constructed by the Federal Government as a giant TV & Radio transmission-tower, it was considered "Federal Infrastructure" and therefore did NOT need to be approved by Toronto City Planning, nor Toronto Council. There was lots of opposition against in #TOPoli.
March 24, 2025 at 5:02 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Yeah, Richard Hanania is not gonna help you reach these people and even if he was there are still some bright lines that shouldn't be crossed.
New polling and a trickle of stories from the battleground states suggest that Sen. Barack Obama’s coalition includes one unlikely group: white voters with negative views of African-Americans…. Anecdotes from across the battlegrounds suggest that there’s a significant minority of prejudiced white voters who will swallow hard and vote for the black man. “I wouldn’t want a mixed marriage for my daughter, but I’m voting for Obama,” the wife of a retired Virginia coal miner, Sharon Fleming, told the Los Angeles Times recently. One Obama volunteer told Politico after canvassing the working-class white Philadelphia neighborhood of Fishtown recently, “I was blown away by the outright racism, but these folks are … undecided. They would call him a [racial epithet] and mention how they don’t know what to do because of the economy.”
March 24, 2025 at 3:46 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
I think it could change things for Democrats. If this forecast comes true, winning the blue wall states won't be enough to win the presidency.
Map showing Democratic states losing electoral college votes in the 2030 reapportionment
March 20, 2025 at 5:55 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Finally, the socialism we need.
@eean.dev
Ian Monroe @eean The socialism we need: Capitalism has failed to build badly needed housing The socialism we have: Capitalism has built enough housing
March 20, 2025 at 12:12 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Consultation dates:
Audience Date Time Location Etobicoke Resident Associations Monday, March 24, 2025 10am-12pm Virtual Register Here North York Resident Associations Monday, March 24, 2025 2-4pm Virtual Register Here Scarborough Resident Associations Tuesday March 25, 2025 10am-12pm Virtual Register Here Toronto and East York Resident Associations Tuesday March 25, 2025 2-4pm Virtual Register Here General Public – North York Wednesday, March 26, 2025 5-7:30pm North York Centre – Main Atrium, 5150 Yonge Street General Public – Scarborough Friday, April 4, 2025 5-7:30pm Scarborough Civic Centre, 150 Borough Drive General Public – Etobicoke Monday, April 7, 2025 5-7:30pm Toronto Public Library, Weston Branch, 2 King Street, York General Public – Citywide Tuesday, April 8, 2025 6-8pm Virtual Register Here
March 18, 2025 at 6:34 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
I hope this succeeds when it eventually goes to council. Council should also exempt these projects from DCs like they have for fourplexes
Expanding Permissions in Neighbourhoods for Sixplexes Citywide and Multiplex Monitoring City staff are exploring increasing multiplex permissions city-wide for up to six dwelling units in a detached home. This study builds on the “Ward 23 – Six-Unit Multiplex Pilot Study” which received City Council approval in February 2025, and it is a key deliverable under the City’s Housing Accelerator Fund agreement with the federal government. Join us in-person or online at an upcoming consultation event! The project team will present findings from the multiplex monitoring program and provide insight into the next phase of housing policy changes in neighbourhoods. This includes potentially increasing the number of permitted units in detached homes city-wide from the currently-permitted four units to six units. The feedback received will inform staff recommendations to the City of Toronto’s Planning and Housing Committee later this year.
March 18, 2025 at 6:33 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
This is AOC's bit
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Verified "The reason why people are on the streets isn't just some elusive housing or market phenomenon. It's because we've chosen not to build." This week in @FairGrowthCmte , we explained how deregulated zoning & a narrow, retro view of public housing caused our affordability crisis.
March 18, 2025 at 5:15 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
@alonlevy.bsky.social has a good post on this

pedestrianobservations.com/2018/11/11/m...
Job density and CBD job share Los Angeles has high residential density by American standards – lower than in New York counted properly, but comparable to San Francisco, and higher than Chicago and Washington. However, job density tells a completely different story. New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington all have prominent central business districts. Without a consistent definition of the CBD, I am drawing what look like the peak employment density sites from OnTheMap, all as of 2015: Place CBD boundaries Area Jobs MSA share Density New York 33rd, 3rd, 60th, 9th 3.85 825,476 8.4% 214,336 San Francisco Washington, Powell, 5th, Howard, Embarcadero 1.81 224,010 9.4% 123,558 Washington Rock Creek, P, Mass., 7th, Cons., 14th, H 3.26 240,505 7.2% 73,775 Chicago River, Congress, Michigan, Randolph, Columbus 1.61 368,910 7.9% 228,998 Los Angeles US 110, US 101, Alameda, 1st, Main, 7th 2.11 189,767 2.9% 89,937 The two main indicators to look for are the rightmost two columns: the percentage of jobs that are in the CBD, and the job density within the CBD. These indicators are highly not robust to changing the CBD’s definition, but expanding the definition moves them in opposite direction. Washington and San Francisco can be boosted to about 400,000 jobs each if the CBD is expanded to include near-CBD job centers such as Gallery Place, L’Enfant Plaza, SoMa, and Civic Center. Manhattan south of 60th has 1.9 million jobs in 22.2 km^2. Even in Chicago, where job density craters outside the Loop, the 9 km^2 bounded by Chicago, Halsted, and Roosevelt have 567,000 jobs. In making the tradeoff between job density and MSA share, I tried to use smaller CBD definitions, maximizing density at the expense of MSA share. But even with this choice, the unusually low CBD share in Los Angeles is visible. This is what Jarrett and others mean when they say Los Angeles is polycentric: it is less dominated by its central business district than New York, Chicago, Washington, and San F
March 18, 2025 at 2:39 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
And here's what the author of that article had to say about the book:
The book’s core lesson, convincingly delivered, is that liberals ought to make it easier to do the things they want to do. “What is scarce that should be abundant?” Klein and Thompson write. “What is hard to build that should be easy?” Identifying the goals is often difficult; putting them into practice shouldn’t be. This will alienate some constituencies and lead to some embarrassing mistakes. But the result will be, well, results. Imagine if, in three years, voters could look to New York, California, or Massachusetts and say with pride: This is what democracy looks like.
March 11, 2025 at 12:45 AM
gamarad.bsky.social
People assume that rules in the building code must have some rationale behind them and that removing them would be bad for safety but often times those rules are there simply because some guy thought they sounded good
Two decades ago, the fire marshal in Glendale, Arizona, was concerned that the elevators in a new stadium wouldn’t be large enough to accommodate a 7-foot stretcher held flat. Tilting a stretcher to make it fit in the cab, the marshal worried, might jeopardize the treatment of a patient with a back injury. Maybe our elevators should be bigger, he thought. The marshal put this idea to the International Code Council, the organization that governs the construction of American buildings. After minor feedback and minimal research (the marshal measured three stretchers in the Phoenix area), the suggestion was incorporated into the ICC’s model code. Based on one man’s hunch, most of the country’s new elevators grew by several square feet overnight. The medical benefits were not quantified, and the cost impact was reported as “none.”
March 6, 2025 at 3:13 PM
gamarad.bsky.social
Some things I would want in a serious American annexation offer
February 10, 2025 at 12:23 AM