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zyudhishthu.bsky.social
Sidewalk enthusiast and former St. Paulite. I like to write about housing policy, especially in the Twin Cities. Nowadays I’m an economics research assistant in Chicago https://pencillingout.substack.com/
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Posts 16 Comments 34

One of the stranger and more bad-faith comments against new housing I've seen. Also, is this dilapidated mill really "iconic" and "unique"? The developer said converting the mill to housing would cost $1.1 million dollars per unit, vs 400k after demo. Seems like a rather steep tradeoff.

submitted 2 days ago • 2 comments

I wrote about the new frontier in land use reform: building codes slate.com/business/202...

submitted 4 days ago • 1 comment

3 flavors of 2-flat

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Going on a run on the NW Side

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

I have a new commentary sharing about Minneapolis’s zoning reforms for an Evanston audience, where high-pitched zoning debates sound kinda like Minneapolis in 2018. Evanston should see that zoning changes can improve a city w/o radically transforming it! evanstonroundtable.com/2025/02/28/g...

submitted 3 days ago • 2 comments

Great stuff! I wrote about this permitting reform last fall, trying to sketch out a larger picture regarding Minnesota’s recent wins and remaining challenges with an “abundance agenda.” minnesotareformer.com/2024/10/03/a...

submitted 3 days ago • 1 comment

A few findings from this report that I coauthored: - A stairway in a 4-story bldg costs about $200,000 (corridor not included) - Zero deaths in 4+-story single-stair buildings in NYC or Seattle attributable to the lack of a second stair - FDNY has mostly stopped reporting fire deaths to NFIRS

submitted 5 days ago • 6 comments

As of Tuesday: we’re so back

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

Don’t look now… but in 2024 Minneapolis seems to have had its strongest year in recent history for duplex permits, even while larger multifamily housing tanked

submitted 5 days ago • 2 comments

Incredible 3-year change along the greenway in Minneapolis, from 2011-2014. The things you can learn from old @jasonwittenberg.bsky.social presentations! railvolution.org/wp-content/u...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

This was an interesting read on declining affordability in Chicago. However, it still seems to me that 2 to 4-flat deconversions get a LOT of airtime as a cause, despite not really being proportionate to the broad-scale affordability problem www.wbez.org/housing/2025...

submitted 5 days ago • 1 comment

“Upzoning won’t even lead to new housing anyways” has to be one of the most strange arguments against zoning reform, especially when it comes from people whose main argument is that “the buildings allowed by upzoning would be very harmful.” Which is it?

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

Coincidentally, Seattle happens to be the one city with a good study showing that upzoning with excessive affordability requirements actually led to a decrease in housing development for upzoned areas, so this idea really really should be written off. www.huduser.gov/portal/perio...

submitted 7 days ago • 1 comment

Alon's take resolves a recent discussion w @danielkayhertz.bsky.social: Shouldn't 3-4 bedroom units eventually be so much more in-demand that they'll be built, even if more $$ to produce? For the developer, it's all ab the best price/sq ft — so we need housing to drive down those 1-2 bedroom rents

submitted 7 days ago • 2 comments

conventional wisdom is that travel times haven't fallen in the congestion relief zone, according to readings from congestion-pricing-tracker.com. but it's not true anymore, and it was only ever true because google maps interpolates historical data.

submitted 8 days ago • 2 comments

Want to understand why housing development is slowing down in Minneapolis? Don't read Carol Becker (booo). Instead, read my post about it! pencillingout.substack.com/p/is-minneap...

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments