California was pursuing a new transit oriented development bill, SB50. It morphed into a general housing bill, before being killed by a powerful Senator . His arguments, shared by other LA residents , was that they didn't want local control taken away. On the surface, that sounds reasonable, who doesn't like more direct democratic processes? But local zoning has failed to address the problems the bill targets, and it is predictable that it will continue to fail, so long as political engagement maintains its current form. In many places, city-by-city control could work, but California is such a jigsaw of localities that each city has incentives to keep following business as usual, which means, zoning restrictions to prop up property values, which inevitably lead to housing shortages and unsustainable costs for anyone who isn't getting the land value windfall. Even those getting the windfall are trapped into non-optimal decisions by housing immobility. That immobility ha...

Excited about New York's new building energy efficiency measures, but a little worried about how it was done. There are too many exemptions here. Focusing on only large buildings (over 25,000 square feet) leaves half of emissions untargeted. Leaving out low-income housing keeps the utility bills for low-income renters high. This kind of exemption is a bad idea. Definitely agree with the goal of trying to help low-income individuals, but there are much better ways than an exemption from these requirements. It would be so much better if the New York passed a support bill, for example funding for housing vouchers as part of this effort, rather than creating those exemptions. The 25,000 square foot limit is also problematic. To some degree this can make sense, temporarily. A bill designed for large properties might not fit well with smaller properties because of increased overhead. But I don't see a commitment here to follow this on, using the learning from the first bill to co...