Building codes, "abundance," federal property, congestion pricing, sanctuary cities
Plus, Nonstandard Popeyes.
For years, social media addicts have debated the contours of the “posting-to-policy pipeline,” the process by which, if you keep blabbing about your niche obsession for long enough, you can actually change the law. Now that the White House takes its marching orders directly from random people on Elon Musk’s social network, this idea may seem quaint. But in the prelapsarian political world, it was amazing to see it happen—to watch as a Twitter thread or WordPress post worked its way up through think tank reports and finally into the real world.
For example, in 2021, the Seattle architect Michael Eliason was doing a lot of tweeting about the American requirement that most apartments be served by two separate stairways—and how it prohibited some great apartment designs he had seen in Switzerland and Germany. This rule, I wrote that year, meant that:
when you require every apartment to connect to two staircases, you all but ensure those units are built around one long double-loaded corridor, to give all residents access to both stairways. You tilt the scales in favor of larger floor plates in bigger buildings, because developers need to find room for two stairways, and connect them—and then compensate for the unsellable interior space consumed by the corridor.
Four years later, at least 11 states and three cities have passed laws to legalize some apartment buildings to have just one staircase, and there are authoritative reports on the subject from Pew Research and the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies that tackle questions about fire safety and construction costs.
How did this happen? Much of it is thanks to the tireless work of Stephen Smith. Once a prolific Twitter poster with the handle @MarketUrbanism, Smith in 2022 started his own think tank, the Center for Building in North America. He has used the platform to advocate for a new set of reforms to the way we build housing in this country, focused on building codes:
The Center… is translating global wisdom on the design of elevators, stairways, and other hidden innards of our buildings for a U.S. audience.
The key word there is translating. Unlike in medicine or computer science, in which English is the language of expertise, information about building practices is hopelessly divided between countries. In construction, we are still standing around the unfinished Tower of Babel, unable to communicate knowledge about plumbing, HVAC, or window design.
I wrote about Smith’s efforts—and the idea that building codes might be the next frontier in housing reform—last month in Slate.
Elsewhere in posting-to-policy, I reviewed Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson’s excellent new book, Abundance. This book makes no bones about its aim to influence the Democratic agenda. When someone recently asked on Twitter why no liberal institutions were working to assemble a Project 2029 blueprint to rebuild our ruined institutions, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres responded by just sharing an image of the book’s cover. And it hasn’t even come out yet!
You can read the review here.
Also from me:
Why New York thinks it can keep its congestion pricing cameras on, in defiance of Real World star-turned-DOT Sec. Sean Duffy and our bridge-and-tunnel president.
Republicans called four Democratic mayors to Washington to talk about sanctuary cities, hoping for a repeat of the fiasco that was the 2023 college president congressional hearing. The trap did not succeed. Even Eric Adams came off looking good, and one viewer told me she came away thinking Denver Mayor Mike Johnston should run for president.
Trump tried to sell the Department of Justice. Did you miss that? There’s a lot going on, but I’ve got you covered.
Finally, some events on my calendar:
Jonathan Berk and I are talking parking at Couchdog Brewing in beautiful Salem, MA on April 2nd.
Jonathan Tarleton and I are talking about his excellent new book, Homes for Living, at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, MA on May 13th.
I'm participating in the Urban Conversations series on April 28th at noon at Harvard’s Mahindra Humanities Center. We’ll announce a respondent as soon as we can locate the appropriate Jonathan.
What I’m reading:
The Mezzanine by Nicholson Baker
Shade by Sam Bloch
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
Why Nothing Works: Who Killed Progress—and How to Bring It Back by Marc Dunkelman