tmccormick.org
Housing and knowledge activist, designer, researcher, writer, builder; Contributor writer at @Sightline.org; etc. Mostly in: Cascadia, Western US, LDN; nomadic. http://tmccormick.org; tmccormick.eth
251 posts
1,233 followers
1,285 following
Active Commenter
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climate-specific passive building standard, maintained and used for certifying buildings, by www.phius.org/about-us #Phius
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as a child, visiting Utah and Omaha beaches, and the American Cemetery in Normandy, learning the enormous scale, stakes, and costs, conducted and paid for mostly by a nation of which I was a citizen but had never seen and knew little about, was a life-changing experience.
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đłđ„ș. That is a stunning and devastating finding.
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there could be a way to triangulate a solution here. What if you published a non-divisive, potentially constituency-bridging, very ground(street)-truthed and considered as opposed to keyboard warrior, article or two by me, about parking matters, for highly reasonable yet for me very impactful pay?
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great steps, but this #MiddleHousing focus is producing almost none of what is most needed: homes lower-income people can afford. What if we aimed higher, for all, and for #HousingJustice? eg by extending the logic to #MissingSmall & #MissingMovable? c/ @trufahey.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/ande...
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great steps, but this #MiddleHousing focus is producing almost none of what is most needed: homes lower-income people can afford. What if we aimed higher, for all, and for #HousingJustice? eg by extending the logic to #MissingSmall & #MissingMovable? c/ @trufahey.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/ande...
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how about regather a #MovableDwelling bill, revise 2025 #SB5332, allow the one housing form affordable (& ownable) to low income w/out subsidy or investment capital? Based on hearings, I'd guess it'd be passable by narrowing to a MTH #MovableTinyHouse definition
www.sightline.org/2025/01/17/t...
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Could be. I just, by default, imagine that legislators, especially the experienced ones in majority party who manage these matters â like anyone in regard to their work and areas of expertise â know better than me and than most people what is likely to serve their goals. #orleg
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I'd imagine it is being negotiated behind the scenes, as most aspects of most legislation are. When all the key players and positions are known, hearings and publicly posting the bil may be considered irrelevant, distracting, non-tactical; especially if you have a strong/super-majority. #orleg
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yes difficulty of continuing/maintaining, and just motivating *any* activity on it by self/creator or others, 100% crucial; and basically #1 driver of my latter-day approach, which aims to make it as automatic and woven with/resulting from existing activities (eg soc-media, notetaking) as possible
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have been exploring such for long while, e.g. (the currently dormant) #HousingWiki (née #YIMBYwiki), and current personal and #DesignResearch prorotype, working-name #Toposcope (subject-generic, low-barrier to use/collaborate b/c employs most-used tools eg GDocs, mobile UI, socmedia). Let's discuss?
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I've been intensively experimenting along some related lines w/ChatGPT etc. I'd say, currently, basically no, at least with normal ChatGPT service, b/c its use mode is live chat interface to human. But it could help one build such a system, and be called by API by that system to help run eg a wiki.
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Where's the rest of the letter?
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Full article www.dannyhayes.org/uploads/6/9/.... Imo this & precedent studies problematically center & support a backward-looking, incumbent industry perspective, via focus on what #NewsMedia did or does; vs, what might be done today towards stated public & civic goals?
c/ @albrgr.bsky.social
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Great tip, new to me also and right to the top of my watch list!; and of (on? off?) course I looove the opening credits. I'd heard of the Algren book, probably via the Lou Reed song. TIL the book title is attributed to an earlier, 1952 country song.
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I don't really know what regulated capitalism is as a factor that could be separated out; seems to just roughly describe the US economic, and largely, political, system. strikingly poor outcomes for many people, across many social indicators, quite so for poorer and many minority populations.
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assessment from ChatGPT: for Americans in or born in lower income/wealth deciles, many social outcomes have declined substantially in 21stC, vs earlier eras in US and other highly-developed nations. Eg almost unprecedented *declines* in longevity, big fall in mobility, vastly higher incarceration.
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this illustrates a pervasive statistical problem: sample, snapshot data like this can easily suggest conclusions that better, i.e. panel, dataâfollowing outcomes of actual people, vs of e.g. income classesâmight greatly refute. c/ @andersem.bsky.social
bsky.app/profile/jaso...
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Perhaps the best wider study I've seen is Oct '24 report from NYU Furman report from Center and Housing Solutions Lab, "The Emerging Spectrum of Government-Led
and Publicly-Owned Housing Development Models." Includes Chicago case.
localhousingsolutions.org/policy-insig... I imagine you've seen.
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well, I'm glad to hear that. Is it captured well in e.g staff report, testimony gathering, do you know, if so where? I looked for such, it'd be a useful reference.
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yes, case in point, I see around #SocialHousing initiatives, incl in Portland, a lot of evangelism, and relative lack of and even shunning or dismissal of skeptical analysis. Which to me tends to raise doubts, discredit and increase failure risk; like generation of previous aspirational programs.
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yes, mainly, Montgomery Co's #HousingProductionFund. But it seems HOC is fairly unusual in its high governmental capacity, long success history and community support. Vs eg a new agency/program, in Chicago, separate (I think) from CHA.
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Financing is perhaps 5-15% of TDC; these loans would be just part of, with much admin cost. So I'm skeptical this'd reduce cost even 5%, & predict it'd be outweighed by attendant costs eg the "beauty contest," lobbying, added mandates, etc. Even *before* BMR revenue loss. @danielkayhertz.bsky.social
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imagine the view of a long-term unhoused Portlander seeing $200k+/door tax expendituresâon the best-connected large developersâfor apts likely to not even be rented at below-market price, or ever by you or any of the city's 10,000s of unhoused and extremely poor, none of whom were consulted on it.
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periodic reminder of my longstanding and evolving case that Portland's ' #FundedIZ' (or imo better ' #FundedInclusionary) program is deeply flawed for multiple reasons; but a key way why so points to a potential huge improvement in cost-effectiveness and housing availability: x.com/tmccormick/s...
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Of course it's an appalling, tone-deaf comment coming from Zuck; but on the other hand, it's worth considering whether it (and such) may have a point, or there's some validity in it. Especially if you don't have direct experience / knowledge of the matter, which is usually.
bsky.app/profile/drew...
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this comment opposing Washington State's #ElevatorReform #SB5156, from #IEUC union (?) is striking b/c it appears to oppose #PerformanceCode generallyâwhich seems way out of touch with global trends & expert opinion. Like, who is opposed to basing on actual outcomes, vs rule compliance, & why? đ€
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here's my project notes with ideas and efforts so far on #Indenture tool: docs.google.com/document/d/1... c/ @andersem.bsky.social
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okay, thanks. If I'm reading them correctly, and also congruent with what I would expect, it looks like it got "progressively" more restrictive, would you agree?
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also, ow my eyes! đ€ the formatting of legislative bills,with same indent for all lower hierarchy levels, makes them so much harder to read! I've been prototyping a tool to auto-reformat them, I'm calling it #Indenture
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for Oregon #HB2258, pre-approved housing plans (olis.oregonlegislature.gov/liz/2025R1/M...), know which of 3 amendments were included in what was passed out of committee? Can't easily tell. Seems applicability of this narrowed in many ways, eg no vacant or subdivided lots.
bsky.app/profile/ande...
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I think unlike on X, messages on Bluesky that start with a handle go to all your followers, not just to that account, fyi.
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quite so, no point distilling from dross, from what wasn't much to start with. It would have to be a transmutation, like an extraordinary effort of empathetic translation envisioning a better speaker and better speech.
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I can imagine, or let's say auto generate, what that letter might say. But I wonder what you might restate it to, if you wanted to #steelman it?
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"These men who own the world in which you struggle for lifeâwhat is it that they want? They want power, power to rule you. And what is it that you want? You want power to rule yourself."
â #UptonSinclair, The Brass Check (1919) archive.org/details/cu31... #NewsMedia #Housing
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"These men who own the world in which you struggle for lifeâwhat is it that they want? They want power, power to rule you. And what is it that you want? You want power to rule yourself."
â #UptonSinclair, The Brass Check (1919) archive.org/details/cu31... #NewsMedia #Housing
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conversely, who involved has long advocated adding housing independent of state or now-collapsing nat'l funding, policy, or finance?đ€The one unhoused, whose dream is to be left alone on or at-cost rent any bit of disused public space to put their own home; whose living in OR at all is daily tenuous.
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when people in power set up or allow processes whereby they and allies exercise control over everything that happens, as e.g. one could see precisely being legislated in #OHNA, It's a feature not a bug, right? We might ask, how exactly does it differ than say Trump's goals, structurally?
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convention though it may be, it seems important to note that by "deficit", what govt agencies mean is they want to not change their plans to spend more money than they expect to get. It's not as if they are required or entitled to follow that planâthe usage is tendentious.
bsky.app/profile/jmsh...
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It seems, from what little I know, that what added the cost here was a questionable decision by the union-backed BOLI head, to deny exemption from #PrevailingWage rules on the grounds that this is a church (as it only formerly was) vs a residential only building; vs the law per se.
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congratulations on the promotion, and thanks for this excellent, exemplary thread summarizing your work. I'd love if all researchers did this, e.g. in thread post pinned to top under bio. Also, intrigued to learn of #LabourersAct Cottagesâ1st rural public housingânew to me. doi.org/10.1016/j.ju...
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agree, any who use the term #Caturday with the remotest suggestion that is only one day of the week, their fall is nigh. Also, Jenny, is any need or wish remaining unfulfilled? The least sign, and I am there.
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unfortunately for the tactic, a huge portion of everyone that advocates in this area need to work with, doesn't believe in and may well feel scorned, unheard, and disinclined to be associated even with rhetoric like this.
bsky.app/profile/maxd...
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for hashtag, #InnerEastside seems quite good, upon checking. #CentralEastside is used by Wikipedia, which I usually follow by default e.g. for #Toposcope project entries. But former is widely used in PDX, and quite uniquely for it: see Web www.google.com/search?q=%22... and X: x.com/search?q=%23...
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perhaps it's an opportunity for a different learning curve, salutarily. The person might say, I took the #RoadLessTraveled, and that has made all the difference.
#RoadNotTaken: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Roa...
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congratulations on publication of your book, looks great, I've #wishlisted. Also, for engaging and inviting responses to book from respondents, I appreciate this, also think it speaks in favor of the book, by suggesting it is probably well and widely considered. đââïž bsky.app/profile/kall...
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the housing aspect of this fascinates me: what is the housing 'lifeboat' that all who can, should have ready? Also, how might it be useful in the meantime, perhaps as vacation, seasonal or rental dwelling?
"We don't call it a house, we call it a vessel."
bsky.app/profile/alex...
#LifeboatHousing
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to grow (or fulfill greatest potential of) Portland's #InnerEastside, follow exemplary lead of 1970s Portland and e.g. #Austin, and do #FreewayRemoval! Revive this transformative vision. Meanwhile, do hashtag your mtgs/topics, and this topic, for open discussion and tracking
bsky.app/profile/tmcc...
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Is there a way I can sign up to your announcements email list?