These trips to charming of overlooked cities don't pay for themselves

But the consulting fees, Tom. The consulting fees.

And architecture buffs can look at the Bijou Theatre, the A.J. Davis-designed McLevy Hall, and the Byzantine Revival Barnum Museum.

Some interesting places in Downtown Bridgeport

I could see living there myself. Alas, I will now proceed to pick apart their fair share plan.

Yeah, I kind of expected to see a town like that or a place that looked like the Sopranos credits. The part of the town by Route 17 is indeed grim but much of the town is nice. Basically a sizable core built as a railroad suburb surrounded by leafy neighborhoods built before World War 2

And some cool looking coffee shops, restaurants, and bars, and other local businesses.

It has good bones. A decent number of 4-, 5-, and 6-story buildings. The downtown is bigger than I anticipated. A lot of missing middle housing. Single-family houses tend to be on small lots with small setbacks. A few decent public spaces. A train station. Few vacant houses. I like it.

It's where every town in a state is required to plan for a given number of affordable units every so often.

Yeah, based in CT, I think I'd much prefer zoning reform to a fair share law if I had to choose

Uhhhhh...

And I don't think some advocates and YIMBYs realize the administrative burden that comes from fair share laws. In June, I was talking to someone who worked at COAH decades ago and they were shocked to hear we were working 60 and 70 hours a week just to draft these plans.

Oh it's such an inefficient way to build housing. Back when Mount Laurel started, greenfield development was a lot more common. Now, municipalities rely on redevelopment, but those projects are significantly less likely to come to fruition.

It's just a question of capacity. These plans are hundreds of pages long. And often we have to go through board minutes, site plan applications, DEP docs, zoning ordinances, and other docs, not to mention site analysis, just to show a site doesn't provide a "realistic opportunity" for housing.

I don't think this is a new issue. I've come across a good number of unbuilt sites from the Third Round that were clearly problematic back then. In fact, some of the more flagrant sites I've seen have been from previous rounds.

cc @princetonyimby.bsky.social

Congratulations, Tom!!!

If I had to use one word to describe Ryan...