The point is this: everyone has stated preferences for good things. But when the rubber hits the road, are aesthetics enough to get projects over the line with the perennial NIMBY whingers?

Of this, I have seen no evidence.

In this way, it’s fitting that the building in the paper that everyone said they’d support is AI generated: it can not and literally never will be built.

I buy, of course, that a beautiful building is better than an ugly building. @yimbymelbourne’s biggest and best event to date was titled “Unbanning Beauty”. But time and time again beautiful buildings are opposed:

I really like a lot of @dbroockman.bsky.social’s work, but I also don’t think we can ask people “would you rather the best building in the world or the worst building in the world” and get findings we can treat as instructive.

Stay tuned to @inflectionpoints.work for more on this next week. I’m very excited for what we’ve got coming down the pipes.

You can read the full essay here: 🔗 mail.jonobri.com/live-auctions

Why? Because different states have different rules around cooling-off periods. Where auctions and private treaty are subject to the same rules, auctions are far less popular, as they offer fewer net benefits for either the buyer or the seller.

Almost 200 years later, more than 25% of properties in Sydney, Melbourne, and Canberra sell at auction, while Perth and Hobart barely use them.

Auction popularity can be traced back to colonial land auctions, which were mandated in 1831 when the British Colonial Secretary ended free land grants due to a concern that settlers were spreading themselves too thin across vast territories.

Incredible bait (thank you)

You can read the full essay here:
mail.jonobri.com/p/new-cities

Still, we should enable industries—especially those which are land-intensive—to take advantage of our smaller cities. That means making planning rules much less restrictive, and enabling firms and individuals to move without friction in cases where it is advantageous to do so.

Moving down the line, sizes of Australian cities as a proportion of our largest city don’t stand out particularly from peer countries, showing that our concentration is not worth writing home about.

It’s worth noting, as per Jonathan Nolan, Australia is not particularly concentrated in our capitals. Sydney and Melbourne are two very big cities, but together they don’t meaningfully stand out from other top-two city pairs globally.

@yimbytown.bsky.social

I noticed that on all the city’s wayfinding signs when I was there in August—embarrassing!