Co-Host of @pie4everybody, a podcast about abundance from the team that brought you YIMBYs for Harris
San Francisco, CA
Joined March 2009
- Tweets 225,133
- Following 10,264
- Followers 84,404
- Likes 624,384
Pinned Tweet
If there’s anyone who knows how to build a bench for Democrats, it’s @amandalitman of @runforsomething. A really fantastic episode
The map is shifting by 2032. Do Democrats have a bench for Texas, Florida, Utah, and beyond? Well If you want better senators in 2032, start by electing better city councilors now.
@amandalitman lays out the $50M Battle Up plan and what works on the ground. Tune in!
Armand Domalewski retweeted
What the public really *does* care about, according to Stamps's studies, is:
- (1) maintaining the stylistic homogeneity of homogeneous block faces,
- (2) architectural decoration,
- (3) trees/greenery.
/7
Armand Domalewski retweeted
- The city passed a bunch of rules about setbacks, stepbacks, break up the massing. Stamps finds that people don't care about this stuff. Worse, "breaking up the massing" often introduces asymmetries, yet the public prefers symmetry.
/6
Armand Domalewski retweeted
What came next was one regulatory misfire after another.
- The city strictly controlled heights, but Stamps's studies find that public barely objects to taller infill until the new building is approx 2x the height of its neighbors
/4
Armand Domalewski retweeted
I stumbled across the work of Arthur E. Stamps III this morning and, wow, my eyes have been opened!
He's was (is?) an architect in San Francisco who wrote scores of academic papers on the mass public's aesthetic preferences & the failure of "design review" to serve them.
🧵/18
honestly my number one ask of SFMTA that would cost zero money is just fewer stops. it’s ridiculous how slow it makes some routes
Armand Domalewski retweeted
Gov Hochul is right!
NYers love that Mr. Mamdani represents transit users & understands the city's overall affordability crisis
But when you ask bus riders what would increase their satisfaction, almost nobody says lower fares first
Happy to pay, just spend it all on service
NEWS: @GovKathyHochul right now is a no on @ZohranKMamdani’s free bus promise.
“I cannot set forth a plan right now that takes money out of a system that relies on the fares of the busses and the subways.”
She’s then pressed on “Tax the Rich” chants:
Armand Domalewski retweeted
I was driving down Van Ness earlier and saw Daniel Lurie get out of a black Escalade with emergency lights on and start yelling at some people who were dealing drugs on the side of the road.
Cleaning up the city, one bus stop at a time.
RECORD SCRATCH, FREEZE FRAME
“Now you may be wondering how I, a former Al-Qaeda commander ended up here, as a neoliberal President of Syria playing basketball with US CENTCOM commanders…”
the weird way that trans issues play in our politics now is that while on specific policies most voters now agree with Republicans, whoever is able to convince voters that the other side is too obsessed with trans issues in any given election wins. In 2024, that hurt Kamala, in 2025 that helped Spanberger
Armand Domalewski retweeted
Trump housing policy:
❌ Increase housing supply
❌ Subsidize those with less money
✅ Invent some more exotic debt instruments so people can pay much more over the long term
I think if you could actually throw up new trains and bridges and so in less than four years at such scale that everybody would see it, it would matter, but our legal and permitting regime makes that just completely impossible
Armand Domalewski retweeted
Take a look at that improved governmental efficiency and use of public resources sized to actual need.
Anyway have I told you the primary use case for fire engines and ladder trucks in the U.S.?
As Jeff Asher of @AHDatalytics writes, New Orleans has shortened some its response times by 2/3 and improved its clearance rates by making better use of its cops, only sending them on jobs where they’re really needed.
Armand Domalewski retweeted
This is disappointing to read that no enviro groups engaged in the NYC housing amendments.
More housing in NYC is the ultimate form of transit-oriented development in this country.
slowboring.com/p/climate-pol…
Armand Domalewski retweeted
With the news that the Supreme Court temporarily blocked full SNAP payments, many of our friends and neighbors are in an even tougher spot
Please, if you are able, consider making a monetary contribution to a Nebraska Food Bank. They do great work & your money goes a long way 🙏
Armand Domalewski retweeted
New in ME: Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), who has long been active in permitting reform negotiations, told me he is working on legislative language that would aim to prevent the executive branch from revoking permits for energy projects it opposes, a key hangup in talks
It’s just baffling to me that in the UK the Labour Party has levels of unilateral control that you could never IMAGINE in the US—no filibuster, national party has massive control over candidate selection, a much weaker Supreme Court, etc—and has done NOTHING with it
I am normally a big fan of @AlexThomp’s work so I’m really baffled as to why he thinks is a news story
the best possible thing you could do for affordable homeownership in this country is to
1) reform condo defect law
2) allow developers to use buyer deposits for construction costs
3) reform mortgage rules so the sub-740 credit score market returns
