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Chris Beam

@nerdkid93.bsky.social
223 followers 73 following 87 posts

Bike commuter, runner, #YIMBY, rock climber @ Ascend, active in Pro-Housing Pittsburgh, and North Way Christian Community member

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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 07/08/2025
@chrisbriem.bsky.social if this graph is true, wouldn't Pittsburgh's collected LST in 2024 for employees within the City of Pittsburgh be significantly higher in 2024 than 2018? Rachael Heisler's Annual Report states that we collected 12.4 million last year in LSTs compared to 15.5 million in 2018!
Page 163 of 2024's Annual Comprehensive Financial Report found here: https://www.pittsburghpa.gov/files/assets/city/v/1/controller/documents/city-of-pittsburgh-acfr-final-2024-5.pdf
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Max Dubler 🏳️‍🌈 @maxdubler.com · 07/07/2025
So-called “inclusionary zoning”—the requirement that landlords rent new units to poor tenants at a loss as a condition of building new homes—is a tax on new housing that worsens the housing affordability crisis it is ostensibly designed to address. It’s bad policy and we should stop doing it.
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Amy "rides an ebike" Zaiss @thewildamy.bsky.social · 01/07/2025
I can only dream and hope for a day when Pittsburgh PRT gets their act together and communicates with riders as much as WMATA does 😩
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 19/06/2025
I can't believe the dumb shipping container home is still happening! I'm all for wacky home designs and letting people do whatever they want, but I can't imagine this home will perform as well as something like what modulehousing.com builds. This won't even have a basement, it's slab-on-grade!
A picture of a home under construction being built out of 6 used shipping containers. The sign on the front purports this will be the first such home made from shipping containers.
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James Santelli @santelli.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
🚨 CITYNERD PITTSBURGH VIDEO ON YOUTUBE 🚨
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Mitchell @mryannagy.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
I welcome all City Nerd viewers to our city.
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 18/06/2025
People do genuinely move away from Pittsburgh due to the weather, but I love it here! Not too hot, not too cold, and my plants are very happy. We're definitely not full though. Please move here people and start walking, biking, and transiting around! Degrowth is the enemy. Make SWPA powerful again!
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
I'm so sad to see this project die. It would have allowed over 250 households to live in walking distance to the East Liberty's business district and preserved over 50 low-income homes for decades. We cannot continue to allow new housing to die on the vine in the midst of a housing crisis!
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Ray Delahanty | CityNerd @nerd4cities.bsky.social · 16/06/2025
Pittsburgh has been hiding in plain sight and I will not stand for it nebula.tv/videos/cityn...
nebula.tv
CityNerd — Pittsburgh: the Affordable Urbanism Mecca?
I love to use data to analyze which cities give you the most urban amenities for your housing dollar, and Pittsburgh always seems to show up. But data is one thing; actually seeing and experiencing a ...
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Mitchell @mryannagy.bsky.social · 04/06/2025
My source tells me this is a pilot program for the 2026 draft, it is gonna be lit!
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 30/05/2025
Hopefully some updates on statewide public transit funding will be discussed here
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Jon Geeting @jongeeting.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
Some of us are starting a Pro-Housing Philly grassroots pro-housing advocacy group here, and we're having a kick-off event next week on 6/3 at the Pen & Pencil Club. If you have liked or retweeted 5 pro-housing tweets in the last year, you have to come! actionnetwork.org/events/pro-h...
actionnetwork.org
Pro-Housing Philly Kick-Off Event!
Hi everyone! Thanks for staying up to date with our first event, coming up on Tuesday, June 3 at 6:30pm at the Pen and Pencil Club. Our goal from this first meeting is to give folks a chance to get to...
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 26/05/2025
My hope is that with these new fare cards for the Masabi QR Code readers, we also get tap-to-pay with cEMV cards as well! It would be so nice for our visiting friends to not need an app or cash to pay for rides if they have a credit/debit card instead! www.masabi.com/full-fare-co...
masabi.com
Justride Fare Payments Platform - Fare Payments-as-a-Service for Public Transport. Transport Ticketing.
Justride, leading fare payments platform for public transport. Account-Based Ticketing, contactless ticketing, mobile ticketing, MaaS.
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 22/05/2025
@governor.pa.gov @lgaustindavis.bsky.social I hope Pennsylvania can show Illinois how much better we do multimodal transportation with a similar record breaking investment in bike lanes, sidewalks, and trails!
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 17/05/2025
My family was 2 of them! What a great time, even if we only tied!
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 14/05/2025
Over 1,000 homes are on hold in Pittsburgh because of the Gainey administration’s flawed inclusionary zoning proposal. We warned this would happen. They denied it. Now families are stuck waiting—and the city is pretending it’s not their fault.
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 06/05/2025
Today, Pro-Housing Pittsburgh announced our endorsements for the May 20th Democratic primary. These candidates best exemplify our pro-housing vision for Pittsburgh, and we encourage all of our members to vote for them in the upcoming primary!
Pro-Housing Pittsburgh Endorsed Candidates

Corey O’Connor — Mayor of Pittsburgh
Kim Salinetro — City Council District 2
Anthony Coghill — City Council District 4
Erika Strassburger — City Council District 8
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
Thank you to Councilors @barb4pgh.bsky.social, Wilson, and @charlandbob.bsky.social for writing/sponsoring this legislation to reduce obstacles to housing here in Pittsburgh. Thank you to @prohousingpgh.org members and allies for testifying in support of this as well! Let's do parking minimums next!
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M. Nolan Gray 🥑 @mnolangray.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
"Estimating the model using policy variation and microdata on development from 2003 to 2015, I find a citywide marginal fiscal cost of $1.6 million per low-income unit." Wow, funded affordability mandates are expensive. h/t @cselmendorf.bsky.social direct.mit.edu/rest/article...
direct.mit.edu
The Price of Inclusion: Evidence from Housing Developer Behavior
Abstract. In many cities, incentives and regulations lead developers to integrate low-income housing into market-rate buildings. How cost-effective are these policies? I study take-up of a tax incenti...
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
Great reporting from PublicSource! I always appreciate their dedication to transparency by reviewing our annual payroll expenses. I hope someday Pittsburgh is able to pay our city staff better wages so we aren't incentivizing people to move to Harrisburg/DC for better careers.
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critical slop studies @struthious.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
New housing doesn’t cause displacement, that’s what the NIMBYs don’t (or refuse to) understand. Not building housing causes displacement
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 23/04/2025
This matches the data I've seen with the city's building permits that indicate that way less than 1600 affordable units have started construction.
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 21/04/2025
CALL TO ACTION: This Wednesday, April 23rd, join Pro-Housing Pittsburgh as we speak in favor of bill 2025-1579 that will reduce minimum lot sizes and make it easier to build starter homes and small apartment buildings in Pittsburgh!
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Jon Hanrahan @hanrahanrahanra.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Good to see Pittsburgh's Fatal Crash Response Team getting national attention:
strongtowns.org
Pittsburgh’s Leaders Made Streets Safer—Your Officials Can Too
For years, Pittsburgh struggled with rising traffic fatalities. Instead of accepting these tragedies as inevitable or waiting for outside funding, city leaders acted decisively with the resources they...
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 18/04/2025
Missed the candidate forum? Watch it on YouTube!
youtube.com
2025 Democratic Primary Candidate Housing Forum
Pro-Housing Pittsburgh and the Pitt Law Democrats are hosting a housing forum for 2025 primary candidates.
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 17/04/2025
REMINDER: Our candidate forum on housing is TONIGHT! Join us at Pitt to hear from candidates running to represent YOU in city government!
Candidate Housing Forum

Mayor: Corey O'Connor
City Council District 2: Kim Salinetro
City Council District 4: Anthony Coghill
City Council District 8: Erika Strassburger

Thursday April 17th
6:30 PM to 9 PM
Pitt Campus
Barco Law Library 107
3900 Forbes Ave, Pittsburgh PA 15260
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Liberal Currents @liberalcurrents.com · 07/04/2025
Neon Liberalism #22: Samantha and guest David Vatz, founder of Pro-Housing Pittsburgh, discuss the meaning of the housing crisis, the death of the "asset economy," and what we liberals can do to fix housing despite Trump. www.liberalcurrents.com/neonliberali...
liberalcurrents.com
Neon Liberalism #22: We CAN Fix Housing
Samantha and guest David Vatz, founder of Pro-Housing Pittsburgh, discuss the meaning of the housing crisis, the death of the "asset economy," and what we liberals can do to fix housing despite Trump....
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 26/03/2025
I just listened to today's #CityCastPgh episode talking about the upcoming mayoral primary race and how PACs were one of the decisive pieces to Gainey's win against Peduto in 2021. On a whim I decided to look up what the Gainey campaign's PAC strategy will be this year and it was quite interesting!
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 25/03/2025
Thank you @reppowell.com @latashaforpa.bsky.social for prioritizing this issue! Pittsburgh cannot thrive without more abundant and affordable housing for all of our new or existing neighbors.
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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
This bill would provide a massive tax exemption to millionaire homeowners and is a terrible idea given our city's current fiscal situation. connect-pgh.com/a-tax-loopho...
connect-pgh.com
A Tax LOOPhole Allegheny County Could do Without
A proposal known as LOOP would give property tax breaks to many long-time homeowners. This would make property taxes less fair and less efficient.
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James Santelli @santelli.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Big-time kudos to Scott Bricker of @bikepgh.bsky.social for responding to Joe Mistick's uninformed op-ed with facts, vision and tact.
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
Local funding for PRT when?! It's so frustrating how limited we are in funding transit here in Western PA. @latashaforpa.bsky.social @senatorcosta.com Can we bring back HB 902 and pass it to plug the holes in PRT's budget? www.palegis.us/legislation/...
palegis.us
House Bill 902 Information; 2023-2024 Regular Session - The Official Website of the Pennsylvania General Assembly
View the status of PA General Assembly bills including history, text, co-sponsorship memos, summaries, actions, fiscal notes, and statute references. Download legislation in HTML, PDF, or Word.
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Russell Richie 🔰🌐🏗🚲♿🏳️‍🌈 @drussellmrichie.bsky.social · 12/03/2025
Interested in why assessment, maybe the biggest objection to Land Value Tax – the least bad tax – might not be such a problem? Check out my new working paper: Land values can be estimated more accurately than property values in parameter recovery simulations. Thread! github.com/drussellmric...
Screenshot of a paper
Title: Land values can be estimated more accurately than property values in parameter recovery simulations.
Author: Russell Richie.
Abstract: Land value taxation is favored by economists (Clark Center Forum, 2025), yet rare in practice. This is commonly attributed to land being harder to value than total property values, because unimproved land transacts infrequently in urbanized areas where the vast majority of land value lies. Here I show with parameter recovery simulations of a simple, banal city that land values can actually be estimated more accurately than total values. I discuss how this model can be extended to more realistic settings.
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 12/03/2025
A report released by Pew finds that single-stairway buildings up to six stories are substantially cheaper to build and just as safe as double-stairway buildings . Let's tweak that city code and get to making some of that missing middle housing!
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Scott has it absolutely correct here. If we don't hard-pivot to building more housing by 2028, Dems are on track to lose 13 seats in the 2030 Congressional apportionment.
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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 08/03/2025
Under Gainey's proposal, a property reassessment would trigger a massive tax cut for wealthy long-time homeowners, which would need to be made up by higher taxes on renters and people who've become homeowners more recently. (1/2)
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Pro-Housing Pittsburgh @prohousingpgh.org · 08/03/2025
Have you ever wondered why some buildings are proposed, but never built? Or how you can influence housing policy in Pittsburgh? Join us and the Carnegie Mellon Democrats for a Pittsburgh focused Housing Primer.
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YIMBY Action @yimbyaction.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
News 🚨 HUD appears to be the target for significant planned funding cuts by DOGE. We urge the Trump Administration to preserve existing federal housing programs and staff at HUD to prevent higher housing costs for Americans. Read our full statement 👇 yimbyaction.org/blog/stateme...
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
OMG! CityNerd visiting his favorite Cheesecake Factory!?!
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Jonathan Salmans @salmansjonathan.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
🧵One of the most impactful things Pittsburgh could do to help people afford housing is improve the Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program. Thousands are currently on the waiting list for vouchers, but it is difficult to find enough landlords who will work with the program. (1/10)
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 12/12/2024
This is fantastic to hear from Pittsburgh leaders. Seattle has really been a leader with this form-factor of housing, so we'd do well to look at their legal framework for local adoption. @pushtheneedle.bsky.social has done fantastic work highlighting some of these unique homes.
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Walt Haim @walthaim.bsky.social · 10/12/2024
Something that could force the neglectful utility's hand to fix their systems and sidewalks and infrastructure: New development.
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Walt Haim @walthaim.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
IZ should definitely be its own piece of legislation up for the rigorous debate and review it merits. The other changes to the zoning code are no-brainers and should go forward as urbanization consensus best-practices.
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Ben S @bensh3.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
Soft costs are such a systemic problem in all of North America that the FTA literally tells project applicant to expect up to 43% of total budget in soft costs (professional services/contingency) railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.do...
Table from FTA showing capital project cost breakdown %
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real life zac “Morgan”-ham @guitardude1236.bsky.social · 06/12/2024
I want deed restricted, mixed-income social housing. I want a metric ton of it. I am simply not convinced mandatory IZ can give us that and in fact, I’m increasingly convinced it will instead make housing affordability worse. Mandatory IZ is just *bad* social housing policy pretending to be free
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David Vatz @davidvatz.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
YIMBYs - let's build more housing to fix the housing shortage. Anti-YIMBY leftist - but what if we just murdered developers instead?
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real life zac “Morgan”-ham @guitardude1236.bsky.social · 05/12/2024
In all seriousness, if we want family-sized apts to be feasible, we need 6-story single stair yesterday
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Pittsburgh New Liberals @pghnewliberals.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Those are four separate bills, are they not? "eliminating parking minimums, increasing the unit:lot size ratio, and big height and density bonuses." - those are all good things. Why not do those without mandating IZ?
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Chris Beam @nerdkid93.bsky.social · 04/12/2024
Lawrenceville experienced a ton of demand for new housing when Children's Hospital and Robotics Row took off, and instead of reforming the R1 district that encompasses most of Lawrenceville, Peduto just said that new 20+ buildings need to be 10% affordable with only a small LERTA for cost-offset.
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