Reposted by Brandon Istenesdereksagehorn.bsky.social @dereksagehorn.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Interesting because outlets like Politico are framing 45 as YIMBYs versus enviros. Will reality bleed into takeworld? 0212
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026"they're just building luxury condos for rich people to keep vacant!" no, you just have very selective attention 011
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 24/09/2026Vacant luxury condos are the "waste fraud and abuse" of housing discourse 0115
Reposted by Brandon IstenesJoe Fish @sadbusdriver.bsky.social · 23/09/2026the thing with luxury condos is that they're mostly a myth. 1. within the same county, condos sell for 35% less than single family homes 2. within the same neighborhood, they sell for 43% less 3. within the same neighborhood and adjusting for some quality characteristics, they sell for 21% less 717733
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026like look at this inane dogshit. The guy wanted the opportunity to talk about his favorite new take. The fact that it has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I have ever done or believed is immaterial. He knows how to use this website 100
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026I am arguing with you because I am bad at bluesky--I make the mistake of treating this as a place where people are interested in saying things that are true rather than making sick dunks that resonate with one's followers. No one is here to have their mind changed, on any subject, ever 200
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 05/08/2026I think there is a category of liberals who are so freaked out by genuine anti-semites taking up the anti-AIPAC banner (these unfortunately exist) that they have started reading being anti-AIPAC as a dogwhistle. That's a bad take which is convenient for zionists but doesn't itself make one a zionist 200
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 31/07/2026I know this is the internet, but I don't think it is productive to respond to Ned/Max/et al.'s accusing every left populist of antisemitism (wrong & inflammatory) by accusing them of being Zionists (also wrong & inflammatory) 000
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 27/07/2026Learned today that England recently passed the "more brits now die from heat than cold" mark 000
Reposted by Brandon IstenesNed Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 11/07/2026We “fixed” that in California with catastrophic consequences. 520213
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 08/07/2026Hoping that Europe ditching Microsoft + AI coding means that finally LibreOffice will become good tech-insider.org/france-ditch...tech-insider.orgFrance Ditches Windows for Linux on 2.5M PCs [2026]France is migrating 2.5 million government devices from Windows to Linux. See why they made the switch, the costs involved, and what it means for open-source adoption in Europe. 110
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 08/07/2026The article has the wrong framing. There's no shortage of inexpensive cars. Rather, the middle+upper class is growing, has increasing discretionary income, and chooses to spend it on huge luxury vehicles. The bleak reality is that Americans are choosing to burn the earth as quickly as possible 020
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 08/07/2026From talking to people on the Maine left a couple weeks ago, it sounded like a lot of people knew and had organized with Platner for years. People would tell me, ME is an insanely small place, he's a known entity, everyone in ME is a known entity. I think the SA surprised a lot of people. 000
Reposted by Brandon IstenesRyan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 07/07/2026It's SEPA all the way down, folks. www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf... 2603
Reposted by Brandon IstenesMax Dubler 🏳️🌈 @maxdubler.com · 06/07/2026I think environmental protection laws should actually protect the environment instead of encouraging habitat-destroying urban sprawl. 524842
Reposted by Brandon IstenesRyan Packer @typewriteralley.bsky.social · 01/07/2026What people think SEPA is: Erin Brockovich codified into state law What SEPA actually is: is this new hospital spoiling the view from a different neighborhood 1324844
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 30/06/2026www.tiktok.com/@raphliy/vid...tiktok.comDSA? How honorable. #dsa #Mamdani #clairevaldez #democraticsocialism TikTok video by Raphael 120
Reposted by Brandon IstenesMichael Hobbes @michaelhobbes.bsky.social · 18/06/2026"The top decile spent roughly 3 times as much per child as the bottom quartile in the early 1980s but more than 13 times as much by 2024." osf.io/preprints/so... 921830
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 13/06/2026Fable was nuts for like the three days before it got assassinated 000
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 07/06/2026Declining facial recognition at the airport was so easy I'm almost embarrassed I didn't do it before. The guy behind the glass almost seemed happy that I declined, didn't miss a beat, and it might have been quicker than waiting for the camera 010
Reposted by Brandon IstenesAlex Armlovich @aarmlovi.bsky.social · 03/06/2026One part of Single Stair's unbelievably fast success since 2021 is that it re-legalizes everyone's favorite old buildings. New "break-up-the-massing" double loaded buildings so often try to emulate them with fake facade divisions and other visual deception But we can just legalize the real thing 213123
Reposted by Brandon IstenesNed Resnikoff @resnikoff.bsky.social · 01/06/2026publiccomment.blog/p/hyperfascism 22860238
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 02/06/2026this can be especially clarifying in housing, where the gap between current production and available supply is 18+ months 011
Reposted by Brandon Istenesalex williams @atwilliams.bsky.social · 02/06/2026damn i was cooking here 0202
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 01/06/2026oil crisis, climate crisis, road fatality crisis, yet petromasculinity rises unabated the US is not a serious country 020
Reposted by Brandon IstenesYonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 01/06/2026The inability of US cities to expand their rail networks is becoming increasingly shocking www.urban.org/urban-wire/r... 69222
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 29/05/2026Great piece by @mnolangray.bsky.social on cities turned into museums. Pertinent to just about every small town in the US mnolangray.substack.com/p/saving-the...mnolangray.substack.comSaving the Buildings, Losing the CharacterOn the strange, slow death of a hometown. 000
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 28/05/2026Created this tutorial for anyone interested in learning how building costs and rents work: rentrentier.com/housing-fina...rentrentier.comInteractive Social Housing Finance TutorialMy favorite thing about the belief that developers regularly make huge profits is that it suggests an immediate and obvious solution to the housing crisis: you! That's right, you can simply build affo... 032
Reposted by Brandon IstenesStephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 26/05/2026Mayor Mamdani has announced the Affordable & Efficient Code Reform task force, to convene later this year. The housing plan says that among other things, elevator and plumbing reform will be considered. www.nyc.gov/content/dam/... (pgs. 98-99) 1230244
Reposted by Brandon IstenesKevin Erdmann @kevinerdmann.bsky.social · 24/05/2026In cities across the country we can all see the encampments on sidewalks and in parks that are a new blight on our cities. This problem is mostly an expression of distribution. The housing shortage creates highly regressive stresses. These conditions can coincide with averages that seem fine. 2/ 231
Reposted by Brandon Istenestammymorales.bsky.social @tammymorales.bsky.social · 22/05/2026From dream to fruition in 5 years. Congrats to @houseourneighbors.bsky.social and @seasocialhousing.bsky.social on your first acquisition for social housing! I'm honored to have played a small part in this historic move toward publicly owned, permanently affordable housing in Seattle. 214525
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 22/05/2026Correct take that no one will accept until like 2060 050
Reposted by Brandon IstenesMike Eliason @holz-bau.bsky.social · 21/05/2026'passivhaus and social housing as key climate solutions' you love to see it, folks 191
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 21/05/2026Yeah, the real moral advantage is for public landlords over private landlords. The advantages & disadvantages of public developers are mostly practical—public financing, countercyclical building, & subsidy return via revenue (but increased political scrutiny) 000
Reposted by Brandon Istenesalex williams @atwilliams.bsky.social · 21/05/2026wonderful lovely very fun thread here 171
Reposted by Brandon IstenesPhil BuildTheFutureNow @philsustainability.bsky.social · 20/05/2026A 20-point increase in a neighborhood's Walk Score (on a scale of 0-100) is associated with a 12.1% reduction in hospital treatment costs and 12.5% fewer hospital admissions 021
Reposted by Brandon IstenesWilliam B. Fuckley @opinionhaver.bsky.social · 20/05/2026normatively and socially a technology I have deep qualms about, technologically and empirically it's clearly only getting better, and at this point the belief that it's all a scam or fake is a belief in the religious sense, not one backed by actual events. 1120324
Reposted by Brandon IstenesMike Konczal @mtkonczal.bsky.social · 15/05/2026Powell's legacy is weird: on one hand, the inflation wave was global across peer countries, but, on the other, so was the soft landing. So how should we understand what he did? Some thoughts, plus the macroeconomics tattoo I got after the soft landing. newsletter.mikekonczal.com/p/the-weirdn...newsletter.mikekonczal.comThe Weirdness of Jay Powell's LegacyPlus my favorite video of him, and the tattoo I got in response to the soft landing. 2459
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 13/05/2026www.denverpost.com/2026/05/12/d...denverpost.comAffordable units in Denver more vacant than market-rate apartmentsDenver’s income restricted apartments are more vacant than market-rate ones, according to data from Colorado’s primary sponsor of new low-income housing developments. 001
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 12/05/2026Ironically this kind of thinking is a major obstacle to the success of social housing in the US bsky.app/profile/bist... 000
Reposted by Brandon IstenesIt's Jamie @sjamieit.bsky.social · 11/05/2026The City of Ottawa posted the raw speed data from before and after Doug Ford banned speed cameras and the effect is so obvious it's not even necessary put a line marking when that happened. This chart shows the percentage of drivers going 15km/h or more over the posted limit. 472105848
Brandon Istenes @bistenes.bsky.social · 11/05/2026Latest from Rent & Rentier is out—about "affordable" housing, affordable housing, and unleashing the public sector rentrentier.com/a-better-way...rentrentier.comA better way to produce affordable housingIn 1937, affordable housing was invented. It wouldn't be called "affordable housing" until the 1980s, and lots of housing had been affordable before then, but that was the year that the United States ... 011