Dad. Husband. Engineer. Planner. Author.
Books: Strong Towns | Confessions of a Recovering Engineer | Escaping the Housing Trap
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Jun 18 • 20 tweets • 9 min read
Do you really get to decide the kind of place you want to live in? Let’s look at five ways Americans tell everyone how they have to live. Hint: it’s less about arrogance and more about ignorance. 🧵
#1: Housing Finance
Think a 30 year mortgage is a free market outcome? LOL
That you can easily finance some housing styles but not others isn’t American preference. It’s b/c the federal gov’t made it easy to finance one and not the other. 2/
May 30 • 17 tweets • 5 min read
We are so focused on trying to build affordable housing that we aren't doing the simple things that would make housing affordable.
Here's a story from my hometown (Brainerd, MN) that will likely sound familiar. 🧵
Like many places, we have our own regional housing study showing that we need thousands of news affordable units.
Thousands.
This was completed before the pandemic. Affordability has gotten much worse since then.
May 20 • 22 tweets • 6 min read
The City Engineers Association of Minnesota did not need to weigh in on a parking reform bill being debated at the legislature. Yet, they did.
Their arguments show why engineers should not be consulted on public policy or be allowed to make value judgements. 🧵
Engineer’s Claim #1: Removing Off-Street Parking Mandates Will Make Streets Overcrowded.
What?
The idea is that, if there isn't a mandate to build off street parking, people will park on the street, and this will make the street "overcrowded."
So much to unpack there. 2/
Apr 9 • 14 tweets • 5 min read
Houston is broke, but so are some of the richest cities in Silicon Valley.
What do they have in common? Not politics. Not governance.
It's the development pattern. The way they build their places has made them insolvent. 1/
Santa Clara is a wealthy place full of wealthy people. The median home value in Santa Clara is $1.5 million (compared to approximately $430,000 nationally) and the median household income is $150,244 (compared to $74,580 nationally).
Last week, Houston officials said they were broke. That doesn't mean what you think it means (it's actually worse) and it's not caused by what they want you to think it's caused by.
First, Houston is not about to file for bankruptcy. They are out of cash. They can easily cover up this shortfall with budget shifts and transfers, which is what they will certainly do. (All local governments do this.)
Obviously, that won't fix the problem. 2/
Mar 20 • 9 tweets • 2 min read
As we enter another election year, here is the promise I make to you: @StrongTowns will always remain focused on our core issues. Housing, street safety, eliminating highway expansions, reducing parking, accessible local accounting. Period. 1/
@StrongTowns If we truly want to restore prosperity across North America, we can't be divided by election year political battles. Every town urgently needs to address the housing crisis, the traffic fatality epidemic, and the infrastructure time bomb driving municipalities to insolvency.
Apr 18, 2022 • 18 tweets • 6 min read
My daughters were assaulted last week by an angry motorcycle driver who grew impatient waiting for them to make a dangerous turning movement. He was aggressive in a public space designed to license his aggression. 1/
That's the scary call I received. They were waiting to turn onto the highway and the guy, impatient for them to go, came around their car and started pounding on it, yelling at them through the window. They were scared. 2/
Mar 13, 2021 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I don't want to sour the optimism of everyone wishing for a return of the "roaring '20's" -- I am grateful to hug my parents again too. I am optimistic for better days.
Yet, WWI was a time of higher taxes and sacrifice, as well as pandemic - that is quite unlike today.
/1
Having societal winners and losers is very different from a shared sacrifice. The former is what we have -- a group with little to no real pain and many people suffering, w/o or w/o pandemic -- and the latter is what 1914-1919 was.
/2
Feb 16, 2021 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
The process we use for hiring at @StrongTowns is unique, but it shouldn't be.
When people apply to work at Strong Towns, we only ask for their email address. No resume. No cover letter. No letters of recommendation. Just an email. We don't even want to know their name. (1/?)
When we have all the emails we're going to get, we send the applicants an article and a set of questions. In this case it was eight. Write two headlines for the article. Write a summary. Give us two recommended photos for the article. The kind of stuff we need them to do. (2/?)
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