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Housing guy. Researcher at UCLA Lewis Center, host of UCLA Housing Voice Podcast, author of The Affordable City, resident of Los Angeles.
An "economist" so dumb I had to explain to him how the import price index works last month will now lead the BLS, kill me
Trump just announced E.J. Antoni, a Project 2025 contributor from the Heritage Foundation, as the new head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Steve Bannon has been pushing for Trump to pick Antoni ever since Trump fired the former BLS commissioner in response to a report showing a slowing economy.
Parked cars vs Outdoor dining in the same urban canyon ;)
People think they hate urban canyons, but if you replace all the parked cars without outdoor dining and open streets these blocks become INCREDIBLY charming.
I'm not disputing the fact that used housing is devalued, just trying to better understand the context. Maybe this acquire-and-rent strategy is actually commonplace, or ownership incentives mean that rebuilding is still more attractive despite the costs. I'd appreciate folks' insights!
I always read about how Japan has a weak market for used housing, with homes valued mostly for the land within about 30 years. But if that's so, wouldn't it make sense for someone to buy these old homes and rent them out? It seems like the preference for new homes wouldn't affect rentals as much.
Michael has a whole thread of these kind of responses, and 100% of the time it's just people rationalizing their desire to drive at unsafe speeds without penalty.
Even by the standards of this discourse, this is one of the worst arguments I have ever seen
Even by the standards of this discourse, this is one of the worst arguments I have ever seen
This quote is from Lawrence Veiller, an influential progressive reformer in the US, in 1913. Anyone wanna guess what the dwelling unit threshold for shifting from the Residential Code to the more expensive Building Code is today, in 2025?
![Quote from Veiller: "[D]o everything possible in our laws to encourage the construction of private dwellings and even two- family dwellings, because the two-family house is the next least objectionable type, and penalize so far as we can in our statute, the multiple dwelling of any kind... If we require multiple dwellings to be fireproof, and thus increase the cost of construction; if we require stairs to be fireproofed, even where there are only three families; if we require fire escapes and a host of other things, all dealing with fire protection, we are on safe grounds, because that can be justified as a legitimate exercise of the police power... In our laws let most of the fire provisions relate solely to multiple dwellings, and allow our private houses and two-family houses to be built with no fire protection whatever (NHA Proceedings 1913, 212)."](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:mcarhragq2bw4wzlu3tdbubf/bafkreifuevrucumm4am4sja6p4p4vymzung23ln4ld77ooartrhgxferiu@jpeg)
Yeah, I figured it was something like that. My intuition is that it's an overreach and unlikely to succeed, too, but maybe I'm wrong. ULA has a terrible reputation among people in real estate and in some policy circles but I don't think that's broken through much beyond that.
Anyone been following this California ballot initiative? It's news to me. It would limit the maximum real estate transfer tax rate, which I could potentially get behind, but also increase the special tax threshold to two-thirds, which I definitely can't support. lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalys...
Killing SB 79 will make Los Angeles a less affordable, less sustainable place -- it'll keep us on the same trajectory we've been on since SB 827 and SB 50 were killed almost a decade ago. Why is the mayor going out of her way to oppose it? There's no excuse for this.
āŖCall @mayor.lacity.govā¬ to tell her to support - and stop telling other lawmakers to oppose - SB 79 and statewide standards for transit-oriented development! docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Call Karen Bass to support SB 79! (213) 978-0600 Script: Hello, my name is ____, (and mention if you are an LA city resident, consider sharing the neighborhood you live in). And Iām calling Mayor Kar...
