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Marina Bolotnikova

@mbolotnikova.bsky.social
14K followers 1.1K following 295 posts

Senior reporter for Vox thinking about factory farming & animal rights, ag, economics, science & its discontents, cities, housing, transit and ✨ideas✨ marina@vox.com ~Skeptical of epistemic authority I live in Madison, WI

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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 6h
"The animal movement’s 'central unsolved problem,'...is its lack of a deeply felt sense of community... It would be silly to think that food-serving businesses alone can fix this problem, but they are important third spaces in most of the modern world." mbolotnikova.substack.com/p/do-we-stil...
mbolotnikova.substack.com
Do we still need vegan restaurants?
Mine closed, which led to a crashout and also some more serious thoughts about the food environment.
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 9h
our beloved neighborhood vegan cafe closed last week, and @mbolotnikova.bsky.social went out and examined why: what's gained from now-ubiquitious vegan options and what's lost when that competition closes "miniature utopias" 🐰🌱 🎁 www.vox.com/the-highligh...
vox.com
Where did all the vegan restaurants go?
And what does it mean for the plant-based movement?
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 6h
Who's going to @4sweb.bsky.social meeting in Toronto next week? Check out my work on the politics of scientific data—from EPA to DNA—in 2 panels (the former presented by my wonderful supervisor and co-author) @nicolecnelson.bsky.social ! #STS #4sToronto26 (Date not shown – both Sat. 10/10)
562. Openness and Open Science Futures within STS 1
Panel / 12:20 to 1:30 PM / 2nd Floor / Dufferin
Participants:
The Politics of Open Models Fenwick McKelvey, Concordia University Adversarial reanalysis and the challenge of open data in controversial science Bennett McIntosh, UW Madison; Nicole Nelson, University of Wisconsin Madison; Kelsey Ichikawa, Harvard University
Are Intellectual Property and Open Science Incompatible? Sukhoon Park,
University of Arizona; Erin Leahey, University of Arizona
Entangled Infrastructures: Skepticism, Open Data, and the Limits of Openness Morgan Wofford, University of California, Berkeley606. The Social Impacts of Monogenic & Polygenic Risk in the Age of Embryo Selection
Panel / 1:30 to 3:20 PM / Mezzanine / Maple West
Participants:
Formatting Reproductive Choice: Disability, Relational Autonomy, and Ethical Implications of Embryo Epigenetic Editing Dan Tibbles, University of Washington
Selling Eugenics: Making ReproTech Markets for Human Trait Selection
Victor Zhenyi Wang, UC Berkeley; Kathryne Metcalf, UC Berkeley The Polygenic Dating Market: Indices of Desirability in the Science of
Assortative Mating Bennett McIntosh, UW Madison
Panel Organizer:
Dan Tibbles, University of Washington
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
How I'd summarize what these places mean to me 🥲
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Andrea Learned | Name & Fame host Ⓥ 🚲 @andrealearned.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Plant-based restaurants, on the other hand, make veganism feel less like a prohibition than an invitation; hospitality rather than horror” Yes! I added my comment on @mbolotnikova.bsky.social thread re: the continuing potential I see for cultural influencers in the vegan movement.
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
I became very angsty about the great dying of vegan restaurants after my neighborhood spot announced its closure this month. I wanted to know whether this is a real trend (& found that it's indeed probably real) & to what degree it actually matters for the animal movement, beyond 1/
vox.com
Where did all the vegan restaurants go?
And what does it mean for the plant-based movement?
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
If anyone here directly knows the folks at HappyCow and can help me get in touch, I would be so grateful!!
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 17/09/2026
It's obviously impt not to let the AI labs write their own regulation, but I feel like if Exxon researchers HAD spent the 1970s raising the alarm about CO2, some of us here woulda decided ""climate change"" was a monopolistic conspiracy against 3rd-world state-owned oil & working-class automobility
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
just wanna note my appreciation for @marisul.bsky.social & @jasminsinger.com 🌱 Vegan/animal rights world media is important. And nothing compares to audio experientially for making it feel like they're in your home, at the table with you
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
All the available evidence suggests Americans don't simply prefer to live in a car-dependent wasteland, & I wrote about it!! Our shortage of places where it's possible to walk to places is one of the most tangible but rarely voiced ways that we lack freedom & choice
vox.com
America is built for driving. There’s hidden demand for something better.
What can we learn from the European cities Americans love to visit?
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
I will never forget her
Black cat perched on top of the back of a restaurant booth with the lighted sign “eat vegan” in the backdrop
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
I have no stake in this b/c I like both things but just find it noteworthy! “The most successful 'add more plant-based stuff to the menus to decrease meat consumption' interventions did not add modern meat alternatives to the menu, but more traditional vegetarian options, like curries.”
regressiontothemeat.substack.com
Traditional veggie options often outperform modern ones
reconciling a new preprint showing no meat reduction effects from introducing modern meat alternatives to other papers that look at traditional veggie options.
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Stan Oklobdzija @stano.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Amazing to live in a country where the secret police are handling inter-chud beefs. It's like the Night of Long Knives playing out in the parking lot of a Dollar General.
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
PLS READ: California's pro-housing turn is facing one of its hardest tests yet. The state is on track to create an exception to a law mandating that local govts allow more density on single-family lots for Altadena as it rebuilds from last year's fire 1/ www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
The most sympathetic case for NIMBYism is still wrong
Wildfires leveled thousands of homes in California. Now the state could block even more from being built.
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California YIMBY @cayimby.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
"The fires have already taken enough from the region; they ought not be allowed to scorch the housing reforms that had begun to open up a more abundant future." - @mbolotnikova.bsky.social on the harm done by SB 1090, which just passed the Assembly.
vox.com
The most sympathetic case for NIMBYism is still wrong
Wildfires leveled thousands of homes in California. Now the state could block even more from being built.
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 24/08/2026
"Should I buy cage-free eggs or slightly lower-carbon but even crueler caged eggs?"
Spongebob "how many diapers" template modified to show Spongebob angrily showing off various egg alternatives. Top two panels: Spongebob angrily gestures at a block of tofu and a bottle of Just Egg. Middle two panels: Spongebob rips back the wallpaper to reveal a glass of aquafaba and lifts the cover off the sofa to reveal that it's actually a pile of flax seed. Bottom panels: Spongebob directs Patrick's attention out the window, where a mechanical harvester is filling a shipping container with a prodigious pile of soy beans.
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 24/08/2026
>cage-free reforms have been a good thing, because they have made a terrible system that we can’t simply wave away with a magic wand less bad. But more profound change will require consumers to demand something more than cheap animal products ~ @mbolotnikova.bsky.social 🎁 www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
Cage-free eggs are worse for the climate. Does it matter?
Here’s what to consider instead.
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 21/08/2026
"The law also includes a surprising twist: You can get married under 18, but you can’t get divorced." The GOP state senator defending this on "parental rights" grounds has run unopposed twice in a row www.wpr.org/news/child-m...
wpr.org
Child marriage with parental consent is still legal in Wisconsin. Republicans have blocked Democratic efforts to change that
During the most recent legislative session, Senate and Assembly child marriage bills sat in committees led by state Sen. Chris Kapenga and state Rep. Patrick Snyder. The bills died without a committee...
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 13/08/2026
Godlewski is not only the second Dem Lt Guv nominee in a row here in Wisconsin to be named Sara(h) but also to have previously worked for the government of my home county of Arapahoe -- in the Denver, CO suburbs. #WiPol Follow me for more politics news you can use!
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 12/08/2026
thank u to @sabs.bsky.social for, among other things, mentioning the giraffe weevil, who is a great Little Guy to know about defector.com/theres-big-n...
The giraffe weevil. Looks like a normal red-and-black beetle sitting on a leaf, except that where its head should be it's got this weird chitinous neck, hinged at what looks like a ball and socket joint, with a tiny lil' normal looking head a the end. The "neck" is longer than the rest of its body
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 12/08/2026
Lotta bangers from @mbolotnikova.bsky.social lately but I wanna share some love for this interview with #LosAngeles mayor candidate Nithya Raman, who seems to be thinking carefully about how to build a Left-YIMBY synthesis 🎁 www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
A new housing politics is taking shape on the left
Can democratic socialist Nithya Raman make Los Angeles build?
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
wait, @hankgreen.bsky.social follows me on here? what's good king 🙏 www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
Everybody needs a personal AI policy. Just ask Hank Green.
How can we reap AI’s benefits without melting our brains in the process?
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
I wrote out some thoughts on the Hank Green situation cuz I thought both poles -- the anti-AI mob, and the backlash to the anti-AI mob -- are wrong, and I've been surprised by the low quality of discourse on this matter!!!
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Sean Carroll @seanmcarroll.bsky.social · 11/08/2026
A good essay on responsible AI use - a rare find in the wild - by @mbolotnikova.bsky.social. So much of it just comes down to enjoying and cherishing, rather than trying to replace, what your brain can do. www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
Everybody needs a personal AI policy. Just ask Hank Green.
How can we reap AI’s benefits without melting our brains in the process?
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Reposted by Marina Bolotnikova
Rachel Cohen Booth @rcobooth.bsky.social · 10/08/2026
I like this answer from @nithyaforthecity.bsky.social in her Q&A with @mbolotnikova.bsky.social www.vox.com/future-perfe...
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Some ppl in my intellectual community don't agree with me but I believe it's important to have a prosperous economy. & one of my master theories about the world is that we squander SO much of our natural resource base on animal agriculture, which is not economically important. 1/
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
Rare, amazing opportunities for someone based in the UK to report or edit factory farming stories at the Guardian: workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e... workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e...
workwithus.theguardian.com
Reporter, Animals Farmed
Join our team at the Guardian and be a part of a diverse and inclusive global organisation that delivers fearless, investigative journalism, and holds power to account. Our team of award-winning journ...
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Cartoonishly malicious administration
screenshotted text: "Since nearly 80% of the population uses cars to get to work and their important medical appointments, we are taking a closer look at federal guidance to ensure American families have the infrastructure they need," the spokesperson said. "This is a common sense approach despite the Left's belief that everyone should ride a bike to their shoebox-sized apartment to eat crickets to achieve a phony climate agenda."
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Jennifer N. Victor @jenvictor.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
Today, in violations of the rule of law that would be sufficient for impeachment in any other American presidency but aren't in this one because pathological partisan loyalty has rotted the constitutional order:
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
Vegan in bio, he is so wholesome 💚
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Richard Waite @waiterich.bsky.social · 15/07/2026
Really good explanation of the indirect land use effects (i.e., deforestation and other ecosystem loss) related to crop-based biofuels by @mbolotnikova.bsky.social:
vox.com
This renewable energy source is actually terrible for the planet
America’s biofuels policy is helping destroy the world’s rainforests
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 15/07/2026
"The modern soybean is one of the world’s miracle technologies, capable of cheaply, efficiently, and healthfully feeding billions of people. But, unfortunately, we’ve mostly chosen to squander it on the most destructive purposes possible." ~ @mbolotnikova.bsky.social 🎁 www.vox.com/future-perfe...
The old headline of the linked article: "Why the Trump administration loves the stupidest renewable energy / America's biofuels policy is helping destroy the world's rainforests."
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Soybeans deserve better than us 🫛
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Sylvia Pellicore @roenok.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
You could put solar panels on something like a quarter of the land we use to grow biofuel corn and power the entire United States. AND we wouldn’t need fertilizers made from fossil fuels! You can even grow shade crops around the panels! This is so dumb I can’t help using all the exclamation marks!
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Jamie Woodhouse @jamiewoodhouse.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
Almost as bad as feeding 78% of the global soy crop to brutally exploited, emissions generating farmed animals, thereby destroying ~90% of its nutritional value. ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
ourworldindata.org
If the world adopted a plant-based diet, we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
We could reduce the amount of land used for grazing and croplands used to grow animal feed.
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 14/07/2026
We're destroying what remains of the world's rainforests for biofuels that aren't benefitting the climate at all, & the Trump admin's unprecedented expansion of the state-manufactured market for soybean oil-based diesel will make it all the worse. It really be that bad :(
vox.com
Why the Trump administration loves the stupidest renewable energy
America’s biofuels policy is helping destroy the world’s rainforests
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
What will the American city look like in 2076? Among many other predictions in this great @mbolotnikova.bsky.social piece, I predict that (a) a mixture of housing types (e.g. ADUs, townhouses) will more common and (b) unpriced off-street parking will be less common. www.vox.com/the-highligh...
vox.com
What housing in America could look like in 50 years
Abundant, affordable, and...fun? Here’s how to get there.
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Robert Goodspeed @rgoodspeed.bsky.social · 13/07/2026
It was fun to talk to @mbolotnikova.bsky.social from @vox.com about the future of housing in America -- and make the case that in addition to zoning reform we need PLANNING to create communities with high quality of life for their residents. www.vox.com/the-highligh...
vox.com
What housing in America could look like in 50 years
Abundant, affordable, and...fun? Here’s how to get there.
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 12/07/2026
Biofuels are so bad. And the Trump EPA’s latest biodiesel requirements are going to have catastrophic implications for the world’s rainforests, & so many horrors are coming from this admin at all times that few people have the time to pay attention. Piece on this tk!
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
Carbon footprint of leather vs. vegan leathers, per the new meta-analysis 4/4
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 08/07/2026
🧵The first peer-reviewed meta-analysis of leather's carbon footprint, by Mikaila Roncevich & @matthewhayek.bsky.social, finds that leather's emissions are about 70% higher than previously thought & WAYY higher than vegan leather (both synthetic & bio-based). Gift link: www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
Leather is not an innocent byproduct of the meat industry
Your leather purse might put out as much carbon as 35 hamburgers. But the alternative doesn’t have to be junky pleather!
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Kevin C Klatt, PhD, RD @kcklatt.bsky.social · 07/07/2026
My take on UPFs continues to be: - there is a need for understanding attributes of foods that influence health beyond classical nutrients, creating metrics around them, and incorporating them into dietary guidance, labeling and regulations.
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Tamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
I do feel vindicated here, since I've been yelling "calorie-density" from the rooftops since @kevinh-phd.bsky.social's UPF study came out 7 years ago. www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/fo...
washingtonpost.com
Perspective | How processed food makes us fat
UNEARTHED | There’s finally good evidence.
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Tamar Haspel @tamarhaspel.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
Excellent @mbolotnikova.bsky.social piece in @vox.com about why "ultra-processed" isn't very useful when we talk about nutrition - and might even be detrimental. www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
The evidence against “ultra-processed” foods is weaker than you think
New analysis suggests other factors may explain the harms blamed on “ultra-processing”
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Marina Bolotnikova @mbolotnikova.bsky.social · 06/07/2026
It is hardly news that the noisy correlation-based data on ultra-processed foods is very low-quality, but it turns out that the UPF randomized controlled trials probably don't offer strong evidence of the harms of "ultra-processing," either. Gift link: www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
The evidence against “ultra-processed” foods is weaker than you think
New analysis suggests other factors may explain the harms blamed on “ultra-processing”
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 06/07/2026
Celebrated America's 250th with the best possible use of our amber waves of grain: my* famous† BBQ ribs‡ *Miyoko Schinner's recipe; link down-thread †Praised in national news site vox dot com ‡ #vegan (made of seitan) 🎁 www.vox.com/future-perfe...
Text followed by picture: The best ultra-processed food to eat on the 4th of July — Last Independence Day, I (okay, my husband) made these life-changing plant-based ribs from Miyoko Schinner’s The Homemade Vegan Pantry. The magic ingredient is wheat gluten, which the NOVA classification treats as a marker of “ultra-processing,” but we’ll be repeating them every Fourth until I die. The full recipe is available on Schinner’s YouTube channel here.

Picture of a baking tray stuffed with seitan BBQ ribs, charred pieces slathered in a rich reddish-brown bbq sauceThe same ribs as in the previous picture (actually this year's version, not last year's), but in the process of cooking -- four cuts of seitan "meat" on a wooden cutting board, all charred and marinated in sauce, with one sliced open to reveal the savory reddish-orange interior
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 06/07/2026
Seitan (which I make at home with vital wheat gluten) is slandered as an "ultra-processed food" which as @mbolotnikova.bsky.social writes is a silly dietary paradigm that deserves to die. You should care much more about what's in your food than what's been done to it! www.vox.com/future-perfe...
vox.com
The evidence against “ultra-processed” foods is weaker than you think
New analysis suggests other factors may explain the harms blamed on “ultra-processing”
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 02/07/2026
"The way we’ve organized housing for the last century has given us not only pervasive unaffordability, but also too few versions of the American dream." @mbolotnikova.bsky.social on the last hundred years — and next fifty — of housing in America 🎁 www.vox.com/the-highligh...
vox.com
America’s housing was built for a world we no longer live in
The United States is turning 250. Everything we want for the next 50 years starts with fixing housing.
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Bennett @bennettmcintosh.com · 27/06/2026
A SIDEWALK REPRESENTS PUBLIC SAFETY and don't you forget it
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Megan Ross @meganross.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
As long as people are allowed to leverage seemingly “woke” or “progressive” language to make the argument for the stagnation of infrastructure, it puts those who want to invest in upgrading roads and amenities in a real optics bind. See: resistance in Seattle to weekend closures of LWB for cycling.
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