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Jesse Orr

@jessezorr.bsky.social
528 followers 331 following 278 posts

Once a development consultant abroad, now a Chicago civil servant. Housing / transportation / politics / etc. opinions my own, but restrained.

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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Yeah I think they were metal. They were remote controlled outside the window so couldn’t touch them, and night so couldn’t see them that well. But I think metal not plastic or wood!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Also they have allegedly 10 years of rent control post moving in but also there’s no property tax and the landlord’s rental income is taxed at a different/much lower rate than normal income… the world is a big place
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Reposted by Jesse Orr
Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 07/09/2026
They taught us about all of these things in elementary school. They called them “simple machines.” Maybe once America is done inventing artificial general intelligence, we can investigate them.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Me to my parents / and family friend hosts in suburban Cologne living in a ~new-build (2020) townhouse: “So you see the floors here are harder because it’s all concrete construction for a mere house and look at these tilt and turn windows“
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
(A classic @stephenjacobsmith.com fact that is unmissable after hearing it!)
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Just want to read more about Pombelime planning and building code reforms for Lisbon…
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Going to Europe now I am like “Wow so many tower cranes for mid-sized construction,” “omg look at this garbage collection” and “Huh so these are the famed exterior blinds you can control from the inside.”
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Any recs?
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
With my parents who aren’t urban bikers - if we did a day trip, which city best? Of Utrecht, Delft, Rotterdam, Hague, etc
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
What a great planned destination for a bike gallivant
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Will be mostly in Amsterdam (not Lisbon tho) with my parents who haven’t been on bikes in 10+ years *and* aren’t city bikers but a countryside one might be viable! Any particular recs from what you did?
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
@ Chicago / Transit / Urbanist etc. Bluesky - About to leave for Amsterdam and Lisbon for two weeks - any recommendations? Especially things outside of the obvious!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
+ has lots of legacy cultural amenities from when it was bigger, maybe a deeper rooted, enough DC jobs to help weather storms, way cheaper than DC which helps, Hopkins and Maryland as anchors
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Baltimore is a rich (relatively) metro area with a poor central city, but with great urban bones and close to lots of other urban / suburban centers.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
Lack of racks making me into a villain 😬
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
I am once again calling for more some bike racks at the California Park Pool @davidpowe.bsky.social even though this isn’t you any more 👀
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
It would be cool and at least slightly beneficial for their PR if the CTA could talk about ridership this quickly - @chicagocta.bsky.social what was Lolla ridership like last weekend? Top weekend of the year??
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Nilo @nilo.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Something that’s very underrated is a lot of elite universities have basically decided certain topics are irrelevant or unfashionable so vast swaths of the American economy simply had no questions asked about them.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I thought it was funny when people were like “It’s going to a SLUSH FUND WE DON‘T KNOW” and it’s like dude revenue is allocated via a public and messy budgeting processing it isn’t perfect but it uh is and cannot be secret
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
You can get around that if you try hard enough with well-designed maintenance of spending rules but they you destroy future flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances, or folks try to start getting creative within the lockbox, etc.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I think if you don’t trust certain folks to execute than voters don’t really care about lockbox / trust fund stuff. Which isn’t super wrong because money is fungible and it is usually easy enough to lockbox new votes in revenue but then shift preexisting revenue streams to other items
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David Powe @davidpowe.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Divvy keeps breaking its own ridership records! Yesterday, riders took 47,700+ trips. Divvy is adding hundreds of new stations this year to support record growth, including the newest and IMHO most iconic station in Chicago at North Avenue Beach! 🚲🌊🏙️
New divvy station at North Avenue Beach
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
CDOT is also expanding “normal” bike parking in the lakefront - biggest issue there is inter-jurisdictional issues with the Park District slowing down installation rather than anything divvy related.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Hence, one story commercial, 3 stories residential. I don’t think you see much 3-story infill vs 4-stories unless it’s a preference for by-right construction because of timing or alder
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
I’d you’re building on a single 25-foot lot it’s hard to make an elevator make sense so you usually stick to 4 stories. Elevator and 2 sets of stairs eat up a lot of space, plus elevators have high operating and capital costs
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 09/08/2026
This is very interesting and speaks to the importance of building codes, and I am looking forward to the day when we have code reform tools to bring down costs of denser typologies that do not involve simply making the structure flimsier, more flammable, and less soundproof
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Paging (🙏) future CTA bus operations director @chicagotrans-plant.bsky.social
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
More height at same FAR also gets better floor plates, better light and air!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Makes you wonder the impact of switching the Type 3 rules from 5 stories to 6 or 7. Since neighborhood FAR caps at 5 (for now) and you can get 6-7 stories at 5 FAR, pretty cost free way to unlock existing zoning capacity
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Daniel Kay Hertz @danielkayhertz.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
New post, in which I try to coin an awkward new housing typology name (the "III-5"), and describe how what I thought was a parking reform story was actually a building code and parking reform story daniel-kay-hertz.ghost.io/the-birth-of...
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
Chicago (fortunately) mostly immune to facaditus (doing many facades instead of a single decent one) though this building has a mild case imho 😬.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
Have they posted what the revised schedule will look like when done? Will it just help the south shire line or MED too?
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
[Does a good ad with clichés and BS]
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
“I won’t give you any cliches or BS”
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
(Since I was going home post match!)
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
I actually meant Argentina - Switzerland lmao
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Big crowds on train and at stations tonight post game, and I’ve seen nobody smoking - @chicagocta.bsky.social is really making a comeback!
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Daniel Kay Hertz @danielkayhertz.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
The thing is, Chicago also downzoned in the 60s-early 2000s--in fact, a huge chunk of Humboldt Park was downzoned. You will be shocked to hear that this has not prevented gentrification, and that in fact downzoned areas are associated with disproportionate growth of white residents.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
Best thing to do would just make the red section or rest of building 1-2 stories taller!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 17/06/2026
As a residential proposal the second building‘s footprint is really wide and would probably have pretty bad floorplans - too much interior space far from any windows / external walls!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
After -7/-10, inshallah ARO condo reform!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
And there are still some condo upzonings with ARO condos they are just rare and doable when really pricey units and bad baseline zoning make the math work
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
RT-4 / 3-flats by right would be way more impactful for condos vs anything else because Chicago developers are happy to build 3/4/6/8 flats and the market / rezoning headwinds for everything else would persist.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
- There are not that many places where 10+ unit condo buildings by right are doable (and outcompete larger rental buildings via rezoning) and the market is still hard but they happen. - Small by-right or upzoned 3-8 flat condos happen all the time!
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
My (weakly held) thesis: - Post-GFC headwinds / changes mostly killed high rise condo construction, period. - ARO (including lack of offsets) specifically kills most condos with 10+ units that result from rezonings.
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
They still haven’t hired enough staff to actually operate their own schedule? At this point… why not write a schedule that can actually be fulfilled at least then?
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
This all seems fair - CTA just managing a harder problem potentially?
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Star:Line Chicago @starlinechicago.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
I think Metra takes their extra board (additional workers on-hand without a scheduled run who can fill in for absent co-workers) more seriously, and I wouldn't be surprised if Metra also had fewer call-offs because they're less reliant on part-time shifts
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
+ unplanned outages are often predictable (after super-bowl, etc.) so you’d think they could compensate for that pretty decently?
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Jesse Orr @jessezorr.bsky.social · 14/06/2026
This makes sense - also given CTA’s austerity approach to operations I can see them not wanting to have unneeded staff… but they seem to consistently need them
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