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Michael McLean

@michaelmclean.me
8K followers 786 following 20K posts

Ideal city: ⚛️ nuclear-powered, 🏙️ dense housing, 💰 affordable, 🚇 transit. Aka Chicago. Posting about those things here, and trying to make them better IRL.

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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 9m
And now its public! www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news...
cbsnews.com
Chicago to install dedicated bus lane on northbound Michigan Avenue downtown
Seeking to reduce delays for CTA riders in downtown Chicago, officials plan to install a new dedicated bus lane on Michigan Avenue.
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John Smillie @johnsmillie42.bsky.social · 1h
citizensclimatelobby.org/blog/policy/... If CCL and Flegal both love it, that's good enough for me.
citizensclimatelobby.org
CCL welcomes introduction of bipartisan permitting package
After years of permitting reform advocacy, CCL is encouraged to see today's release of the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs Act.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 1h
I can't believe its ... finally here?! This deal harkens back to the forgotten era where the senate would commonly work together to craft big legislative packages
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 2h
Permitting reform bill text just dropped www.epw.senate.gov/public/_cach...
epw.senate.gov
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 2h
One of the most flippable wards this cycle is Ward 32. Please toss some coin to the pro-housing, pro-mobility candidate @patgilsenan.bsky.social for the end of the quarter!
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Djinn & Tonic @djinnandtonic.bsky.social · 2h
People yell about the Median Voter not understanding things, but truly the lowest form of hominid is a Gen Xer that voted Green in 2000 and hollers like a hit dog every single time you invoke the name Nader.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 3h
What the hell is happening in OREGON?!
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 4h
I wonder what fair ward maps would look like from an independent commission news.wttw.com/2026/09/29/n...
news.wttw.com
New Study Examines the Impact of Ward Redistricting in Chicago
The study, which tracks 100 years of ward redistricting in Chicago and Milwaukee, found that 15% of Chicago’s land has never changed wards.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 4h
Missing massives
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 5h
The first mayor in America to do this will be put on Mt Rushmore
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 5h
Most Lincoln Park story ever. Neighbor hires someone to feed squirrels in the park, leading to rat infestation. wgntv.com/news/wgn-inv...
wgntv.com
‘Nutty’ situation in Lincoln Park
The piles of nuts first began appearing outside a Lincoln Park home a few years ago, attracting a swarm of squirrels. Since then, workers carrying matching shoulder bags have been spotted dumping p…
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 6h
Awesome opportunity this weekend to door knock for democrats in WI-03, which can be flipped operationswingstate.com
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Protect Bridgeport Bicyclists @stevevance.net · 7h
Bingo.
A classic example of such counterproductive pandering is the tired, yet oft repeated pledge to not increase property taxes. Sure, everyone hates property taxes, but think about it: corporate fund revenue doesn’t grow with the economy, thereby diminishing Chicago’s capacity to maintain service levels over time. The property tax is the largest revenue source available to Chicago, clocking in at $1.8 billion this year. The vast majority of those dollars cover Chicago’s pension contribution, which will total over $2.94 billion next year, when the advance pension payment is added to the required payment under the back-loaded amortization schedule. Not increasing property taxes would effectively force Chicago to divert even more corporate fund revenue to cover its pension debt — further constraining the city’s capacity to fund core services. That’s not solving problems — it’s making them worse.

Ralph Martire is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a nonpartisan fiscal policy think tank, and the Arthur Rubloff professor of public policy at Roosevelt University.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 17h
No matter how much you thought you hated the guy, you still don’t hate him enough.
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Yonah Freemark @yonahfreemark.com · 29/09/2026
617 days into his 2nd term, Trump's Department of Transportation has *still* not approved a single new transit project for full funding. The problems I highlighted in March—how this lack of funding only makes projects cost more & delays completion—have only worsened www.urban.org/urban-wire/r...
There have been no approvals for new transit projects in the entire 2nd Trump Administration. This graph, produced in March 2026, remains accurate now, in September 2026.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 18h
White Sox World Series run would feed a generation in Chicago. Would probably accelerate the popes travel plans 😂
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 18h
Wow, the agent went rogue and accessed the Chicago data portal. Just like me.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 18h
Welcome to the Canadian century
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 20h
Pope Leo is abundance pilled
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Alex Horowitz @alexhrwtz.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Thanks, Ned. The extent of the child poverty reduction from allowing enough housing to push down real rents 20% approaches the 2021 temporary child tax credit expansion.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
Genocide these fuckers
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
People are sick of this process 1. Make a committee with all relevant interest groups 2. Committee produces report 3. Report recommends pilot program 4. Pilot program needs appropriations 5. Multi year pilot produces report 6. Full rollout Just do the thing you were elected to do!
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David Powe @davidpowe.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
NITA budget prioritization survey just dropped: polco.us/n/res/vote/n...
polco.us
What Moves You? Help Shape the 2027 NITA Budget
Polco is a secure and reliable place to provide input directly to local and state leaders, as well as other socially minded organizations.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
GOP ruining their congressional apportionment
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Star:Line Chicago @starlinechicago.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
If you were wondering what kinds of trains we could use when we #BuildTheTunnel, this is a great example
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
We could solve so many problems at once by tolling all mainline interstate highways in Chicago. Increasingly think this should become a tablestakes policy for urbanists in the upcoming elections...
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Fietser Brandon @americanfietser.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Cargo bikes for democracy! 🗳️ My daughter and I took the cargo bike to the post office and dropped off our household absentee ballots. Two votes to end a Republican cult rooted in oppression and fascism.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
The master race
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
Many such cases
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
How on earth
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 29/09/2026
Matched with a firefighter on my friends Hinge, peppering them with building code questions. Let’s see how they feel about single stair…
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3underscores.bsky.social @3underscores.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The FAR density of 100 Gold St will be 30, which comparable to some of Namdar's Journal Sq towers (the one at Newark and Central will have a residential FAR of 38.6). By far the highest residential FAR of any Manhattan apartment building (NYC a FAR cap of 12 from 1961-2024)
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Daniel Tobon @dtobon.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Lord, I've seen what you've done for others . . .
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
Hasn’t been this high since I was in middle school
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
"Watch the 10 year" - Chamath, David Sacks, etc
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
With just 38 launches fully loaded with the new v3 sat, the Starlink constellation will have the same bandwidth as the entire terrestrial internet. Having all of that under the control of a fascist is pretty bad.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
I think we romanticize 'Missing Middle' housing too much. Real rent deflation comes from Missing Massives. Chicago needs more towers around train stations.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
The most surprising thing about having a kid is that my cats went from being so important, to like not important at all lol. When we got home from the hospital I was like, get out of the way.
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
Now that the Smart Streets program is scaling up to the whole city, maybe we can convince aldermen to build more bus lanes to boost enforcement revenue
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Stephen Jacob Smith @stephenjacobsmith.com · 28/09/2026
Wow, they’re selling 30 condos on public land. In NYC, City Council has effectively banned any *private* land rezoned since 2014 from being sold as condos, through MIH. It’s really frustrating at a city so deferential to owners of existing homes is so hostile to more homeownership opportunities.
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Janne M. Korhonen @jmkorhonen.fi · 28/09/2026
Gabriel’s horn has infinite area but finite volume, in contrast to vuvuzela, which has finite area but infinite volume
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
Video of an F-16 intercepting a helicopter that violated the TFR over Chicago yesterday. Video from @IndySportsGuy
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 28/09/2026
Alderman La Spata is pro-business
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 27/09/2026
Ran into 5 urbanist friends
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Block Club Chicago @blockclubchi.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Nearly 100 mourners gathered Saturday to remember Juan Martin Márquez, who was killed in a hit-and-run while riding his bike in Garfield Ridge earlier this month. buff.ly/o3FmBng
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 27/09/2026
All the YIMBYs came to my neighborhood to knock doors for @patgilsenan.bsky.social!
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Tom Flood @tomflood.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
You take our bike lanes, we take the road. Toronto showed up Friday night. 📸 @geoffreybercarich via Instagram
Cyclists taking the lane stretching kms of a city street
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 27/09/2026
Wow Evanston is ruined
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Michael McLean @michaelmclean.me · 27/09/2026
Heads up to the cyclists: Im working on an open source traffic counter. Commodity hardware is so cheap (well, except RAM and flash storage), and it’s effortless to write software for this stuff now.
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