Conor Dougherty Profile Banner
Conor Dougherty Profile
Conor Dougherty

@ConorDougherty

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*923385d6 New York Times/Golden Gates book. #SkateTwitter enthusiast and @CandaceJackson superfan. conor.dougherty @nytimes .com.

Los Angeles, CA (sorry).
Joined January 2010
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The NY Times parachuted me into SF so that I could write about a city and downtown about which I have no knowledge or experience.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
Writing about housing has made me love all the cities I used to think were shitty (Phoenix etc) and hate all the cities I used to think were great (SF, NYC). I mean, I don't *really* mean that. But affordability is a virtue and if your city is too expensive it is not "livable."
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
I've said this many times, and I realize it's a fantasy, but I really want the LA Times to assign a reporter to cover New York. I just really want that outside perspective and explainer paragraphs on things like what a borough president actually is.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
After three years of trying and failing to convince @nytimes editors to let me write a deep dive on Henry George, I have finally succeeded. (Not gonna lie: This one took some doing.)
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Read this excellent, jaw-dropping story from @JulietteRihl on how the affordable housing shortage has people applying to affordable housing lotteries in cities around the country -- then moving cross-country when they get one.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 month
The @sfstandard is absolutely murdering it right now. Anyone who wants to believe in local journalism again should be reading it religiously. I love the Chron forever and ever. It's my hometown. But credit where it's due, and the Standard is on fire.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
2 months
One thing I really miss about SF is being at a party with extremely wealthy and influential people who have no idea who senators are and couldn't name a single cabinet member but want to talk for 6 hours about the particular politics of the SF Board of Supervisors.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
If you read one article on land/land use today/this week, make it this fantastic Sunday Business story by @Newmanalia about vast tracts of public land that are "locked" by private ownership.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Great story by @brooksbarnesNYT on the box office carnage of highbrow movies. I think I've read like 30 think pieces on Tár yet have not met a single person who has seen it. It seems good! 'm super curious! I just can't make myself get in the car.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I am striking with more than 1,000 of my Times colleagues today. It's too bad it had to come to this, but I have been so energized by the spirit of solidarity and the chance to organize with colleagues young and old.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Yes I'm kidding.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I've watched @dillonliam from afar for many years and all I've ever seen him do is cover the hell out of housing while sourcing like crazy and producing a long list of great stories.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
10 months
I met Ravitch for an interview about public finances during the Great Recession and at one point he said the reason state government is always messed up is that they put capitols in places like Albany and Sacramento and nobody good wants to go there.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
4 months
My latest @nytimes story is a wild, down-to-the wire tale on the tech billionaire-backed attempt to build a new city in Solano County, CA. This one took some doing. (Thanks to @NoreenMalone for her genius editing.) Read on...
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
5 months
This narrative is insane. SF has lots of homeless and drug problems and those problems likely turn certain ballplayers and their families off of the city. But the idea that those problem ARE WORSE THAN LA is so beyond bonkers I don't know what to do with it.
@KNBR
KNBR
5 months
Buster Posey said there is a perception of an "uneasiness" in SF that is making it harder to court players. Buster Olney says that's true: "When you have the off the record conversations with agents and with players, that comes up as being a factor. There is no doubt about it."
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
Latest LA observation, though this one is admittedly sketchy. One thing I've noticed is that the culture of the entertainment industry is personally self-absorbed but outwardly generous, whereas the systems thinking in the Bay Area is outwardly generous and personally repellent.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
7 months
This is 46…
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Because I think every story is a housing story, my theory on the box office is that it's suffering from an urban planning problem. Let's be real, unless you're a real mall person, going to the movies SUCKS. Parking, traffic. It's worse than the doctor.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
To the list of reasons why you should never say anything interesting on Slack, email or DM (or text, or in any digital form, basically), you can add the possibility that a rich person will buy your company or chosen platform and release it all for fun.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
8 months
How did a former Goldman Trader convince Silicon Valley's biggest investors to give him $900 million to buy farms in Solano County in hopes of building a new city? The great @eringriffith had details and I helped a bit too.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
9 months
Every time I visit Minneapolis I am reminded that "Los Angeles Lakers" is truly among the stupidest names in the history of professional sports.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
7 months
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
9 months
One of our first babysitters came over in mom jeans and a NASA sweatshirt over a pair of K-Swiss. I told my wife, thank God we got a responsible nerd and she was like no, that outfit marks her as cool. Time has passed me by.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
8 months
I wrote a story about how a Montgomery County Maryland has for decades been building public housing under another name. It's a clever use of public money and beats private equity at their own game. Read on:
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Every year in January, thousands of volunteers go into the cold and one by one count the U.S. homeless population. This year me, @jackhealyNYT and @campbellnyt followed them more or less simultaneously, but in four very different places.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Whenever I describe the 30-year-fixed as an entitlement people lose their minds. But it is every bit as much an entitlement as SS & Medicare.
@jackhealyNYT
jack healy
1 year
An English guy I once met on a bike trip was stunned to learn that Americans could just lock in historically low mortgage rates for decades. ⁦ @ConorDougherty ⁩ —>
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Home prices are falling but rents are still high. What's a seller to do? Become a landlord. Me and @bencasselman on how housing has become so valuable that even owners who need to move are doing everything they can to not sell.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
Here is a thread on my three-year journey to writing an @nytimes story on Henry George. This is probably dumb, but Twitter is dumb, so it's low pressure. BTW, story is here:
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
5 months
Nobody without millions in annual income goes to Florida from CA because of taxes but lots go because of housing costs. Why can’t they talk about what they are talking about!!!
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
One of the things that annoys me about AI is that it's yet another computer thing. My whole life: Nothing but computer things. Can't we have like a nuclear powered train or some other innovation that I can get excited about before the world ends?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
28 days
Gutting. Cathy was the recruiter who plucked me out of San Diego to bring me to WSJ. My whole life changed because of her faith in me. On email I assumed would be stuffy and professional. At the interview she said "f*ck" no fewer than 35 times. The best human.
@johncbussey
John Bussey
28 days
Cathy Panagoulias, a highly respected, former top editor at the WSJ and mentor to a generation of journalists, has died at 70. Colleagues have set up a memorial fund. Contributions can be made to the Journalism Refugees Education Fund.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Things getting very tense at work. After 20 months of negotiations, more than 1,000 @NYTimesGuild members (including me) pledged to walk out if @nytimes does not agree to a complete and fair contract by Dec. 8.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
7 months
Look at what my new colleague @hknightsf did IN A WEEK:
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I agree with NYT management that a company has to be profitable to be successful, but at the same time management is saying it can't meet the union's salary demands it is planning a huge stock buyback.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I want to talk to people who live in a single-family rental home, preferably one owned by a large investor in a suburb, but no imperative. I have no agenda and don't care if you landlord is good or bad. I'm more interested in you and your housing story, housing choices, etc.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I know the answer in CA!
@DanaGoldstein
Dana Goldstein
1 year
One question that motivated this reporting with @gebeloffnyt : Why are so many Boomer empty nesters hanging onto large homes, which limits options for younger buyers? It turns out many simply can't afford to move:
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The great @hknightsf on how SF has finally come out of denial and accepted that its downtown, which accounts for more than two thirds of its taxes, is in need of saving.
@hknightsf
Heather Knight
1 year
My latest column: San Francisco’s downtown is the slowest to recover in the country, and its revival is crucial to the city’s future. Mayor Breed belatedly offered her proposals Thursday, and business leaders shared more ideas with me. Will they be enough?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Yes I'm being sarcastic. I always forget you have to baby feed Twitter.
@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The NY Times parachuted me into SF so that I could write about a city and downtown about which I have no knowledge or experience.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
One of my favorite parts of reading about CA is that I blend national and local takes, which is super helpful. But NYC almost never gets written about by outsiders, except as comedy or during elections.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I think SF will emerge better than ever. I also think the here to there will be rough, that the people who live through that roughness will spend the rest of their lives talking about having been there when at parties, and will hate whoever comes after recovery. As it always is.
@Richard_Florida
Richard Florida
1 year
San Francisco will emerge better from this. Empty office buildings do not mean the end of cities.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The nature of the place is not one or the other, but the results of the collision. The Internet, for instance, is a weird collision of hippies, the military industrial complex, and venture capital. It needs all three of those ingredients to be the thing it is.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The "San Francisco is not a hellscape" takes feel like the city equivalent of "I'm not a witch."
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
2 months
What if you see an ostrich that looks stoned?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Everyone knows Jerusalem is my favorite but I don't see a huge difference between renting and owning if the supply keeps up. I realize that's a big if, but this argument always leads me to a more existential question about the blurry difference between a tenant and a bank tenant.
@JerusalemDemsas
Jerusalem
1 year
The American love affair with homeownership needs to come to an end.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
27 days
Cathy's greatest skill, the one that separates true leaders from workaday managers, is that she was as vicious to the people above her as she was loving to those below. Life is full of people who say they have your back, and scarce on people who really do. I will miss her so.
@jimcarltonsf
jim carlton
28 days
Just learned the devastating news today of the untimely death of former WSJ editor Cathy Panagoulias. Cathy was one of the most beloved and legendary editors of the Wall Street Journal over the last 40 years and helped many young journalists including myself navigate a seemingly…
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Damn, this paragraph.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
I have been saving a coffee mug for just this occasion.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
9 months
This is petty, but I love not knowing the names of East Coast cities that East Coast editors assume I know. "Well, so and so is from Scarsdale, so, you know." Actually, I do not know. Is that near Canada or something?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
Like that famous LA Times story about the NYC dining scene? I thought that was pretty good! It was funny, sure. But a piece of me was also like, damn this helpful. Remove the most obvious jokes and it was just a nice outside perspective on the city.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
26 days
Trump's turnabout here is an interesting window into the potential politics of Yimbisym nationally. He was originally all for it (in 2019 he signed an EO directing states to pursue zoning reform) then shifted in the 2020 campaign and now has remained anti.
@FairweatherPhD
Daryl Fairweather ⛅
26 days
The word "woke" has lost all meaning. If it's woke to be pro-housing then it's woke to want economic prosperity for Americans. Being anti-housing is economic self sabotage. Why protect the suburban lifestyle? You know what protects people: a roof. Image credit @GeorgistSteve
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I love the SF Chronicle forever but guys you really need to get it together on the tech side. It's so brutal.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I haven't fully developed this thought, but whenever I read about the Gold Rush or the railroad or Henry George or Arthur Page Brown or "Baghdad" - really any moment in SF history - a version of this theme seems to run though intellectual, physical and economic thought.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
10 months
It was kind of a joke but also kind of not and maybe unfair but also kind of not?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I've never entirely figured out why we focus so much on politics when economic power is far and away the prevailing theme of American life at every level of society. A lot of people don't think about politics but exactly zero people don't think about money, constantly.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I think about "homeless." Homeless was a kind equity language that proliferated through 1980s advocates who were trying to steer the world away from "bum." Now it's being replaced with unhoused, which will presumably have its own issues someday.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
The sum total of climate policy seems to be "fix the problems wrought by suburbs w/out actually fixing the suburbs."
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
22 days
Is ultra low alcohol beer/wine a thing? I've been drinking a lot of NA beer (so <0.5%) but want a little tickle and would just love a 2% or something. I know there's like 3.5% Bud in Utah, but I'm talking like craft stuff. Seems like a good category.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Movies are in a weird place. Last year I was watching the Oscars and had never even heard of, let alone seen, several the best picture contenders.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
7 months
I don’t believe anyone can sustain hardcore creative work for more than 2/3 hours. You can work 16 hour days as a manager but you cannot write for 16 hours without massively paying it back later.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
I've been working less than ever and skateboarding more than ever. The positive impact on my mental health is staggering. I want to get back to weights, and miss the rush of heavy cardio. But doing something fun feels considerably healthier, which is, I guess, the point?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Random thoughts while I'm thinking about SF, the city where I mostly grew up, where I have moved to and from over the decades, and where my family still lives.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
10 months
Everyone who follows me knows that I have been a @hknightsf Stan for many many years. So I am beyond excited to have her as a colleague covering my hometown.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
I still drink but drink WAY less than I used to. I love how the number of sober people has increased the number of sober options and decreased the amount of caring people do when you abstain. That said...
@pmarca
Marc Andreessen 🇺🇸
1 year
On Pausing Alcohol "Always carry a flask of whiskey in case of snakebite, and furthermore always carry a small snake." -- W. C. Fields About six months ago, I stopped drinking alcohol. I feel much better, and I’m mad as hell about it. I never really drank through my 20s and…
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
Watching my alma mater ruthlessly sack a whole list of journalists that I have long considered 10x the reporter I am is one of the most destabilizing events in a 20-year career that has more or less been one continuous stream of layoff announcements. I am shook.
@baoyuan
Elizabeth Yuan
3 months
The names on here are jaw-dropping. They represent top-notch journalists, the best in the biz. In an election year.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
9 months
I know ever generation gets old in its own way and none of them ever comprehends or accepts it, but no matter times I hear it I will not/cannot accept that young people who strut around in jorts and thick-soled nerd shoes look cool.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
Great story on the insane amount of money going to the least consequential race in American politics. Of all the jobs that could be done by AI, I think "California Democrat in Washington" has to be one of the easiest.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
She speaks! If you read one thing today (or this week), read @amychozick ’s deep and fantastic profile of Elizabeth Holmes - who hasn’t spoken to press in seven years - as she gets ready to head to prison.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
10 months
I love the Athletic – my go-to for SF Giants coverage – and was a paying subscriber long before it was purchased by @nytimes . But I can't abide by The Times's union-busting decision to eliminate our Sports Desk and stand with colleagues who demand the company respect union work.
@NYTimesGuild
NYTimesGuild
10 months
The @nytimes violated core principles of our contract with its decision to shutter our Sports desk and replace it with The Athletic. We will not stand for the company’s brazen union-busting or its attempts to pit workers against each other.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
I realize this is a lot of stray thoughts. Please don't take them overly seriously. I've just come to find the phrase "I want to change the world" to be arrogant in the extreme, even for supposed altruists, and find myself soothed by people who just want to do their thing.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
Why is nobody in the lamestream media talking about how cold it is in LA?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
Me and @AndreasTrolf have been trying to reacquire these lately, so for Old Clip Thursday I present a compilation of 28-year-old nollie flips.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
So I find LA's culture to be much more free, b/c aside from complaining about the obvious annoyances of urban life people do not professionally care what anyone else is up to, and don't sit around dreaming up solutions for problems they didn't know they had.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
Days like this remind me how razor thin the margins of my (extremely lucky and privileged) career have been. A break one way instead of the other, a missed email here, an unmade connection there – hell, if I were born a single year later - and I would likely be out of journalism.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
10 months
Carmy and Claire have an extremely Gen X relationship. They connect in a store, not online. He gives her the wrong number, and she likes it. She is an accomplished physician while he is distant and tattooed guy toiling in a low-margin business. When they need to talk, they call.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
They arrive and crash into each other, then argue over which are the true chosen children, glossing over the fact that everyone is a bunch of interlopers.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
One of the most damaging ideas in American politics is the delusion that the president has any real control over the economy. It's not true, has never been true, and you don't want to live in the world in which it is true. And yet, we engage it daily.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
2 months
Since this is getting some traction. My book has a chapter on what you might call a loose history of YIMBYism (as some have noted here). It begins in 1975, so, you know, before Sightline, and before me. Many of the other histories (Yglesias etc) are part of that history.
@LeoniaBatlan
Adam Batlan
2 months
Has anyone written a good YIMBY history? Think I’m off on chronology. Is it: @Sightline -> @MarketUrbanism /Stephen Smith -> @mercatus / @salimfurth / @mnolangray -> @UCLALuskin / @cayimby / @ShaneDPhillips / @mnolangray (again) -> (Maybe) @NiskanenCenter / @aarmlovi (taking the mantle)
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
9 months
Bank days with @mmunzenrider for my latest #SkateTwitter meetup. At 45, I thought flip tricks were behind me. But they are slowly coming back. Bank nollie flip is the next goal. Might do it, might not. At this point it’s all a gift.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
San Francisco has gotten busier the past few months, but office workers are still only going in about 2.5/3 days a week. That is not nearly enough traffic for downtown to exist in its past form. Financial carnage awaits. My story with @emmabgo .
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
23 days
100% to Daryl. And we all know from The Big Short that Margot Robbie excels at explaining economic wonkery.
@FairweatherPhD
Daryl Fairweather ⛅
23 days
@ConorDougherty @marypilon Producing this movie is going to turn Margot into a Georgist.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
I got so into the guy & his followers that I bought multiple George books (P&P, the bio by Henry George Jr., stuff from Heilbroner) and spent several weeks larding my book with George content until my Penguin editor said "Stop this now" and I deleted it and got back on track.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
The past few months of living in LA while working from home have given me the impression that it is a cold and rainy place with not that much traffic.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Truly there is nothing worse than listening to a tape of you interviewing someone.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
@rachel_dry At some point I found a guy named Mike Curtis who was conducting Georgist classes in prisons. So I starting writing his students to ask about them. What can I say? Some people got into baking during Covid. I got into chatting with inmates about Henry George.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
6 months
I would also like to say thank you to two great editors, @NoreenMalone and @rachel_dry , for not making fun of me when I said I wanted to write a "news" story about a once famous but now obscure writer who died in 1897.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Aside from crappy zoning, few things get me angrier than stock buybacks, which are a useless and inefficient scheme that serve no real business purpose.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Burbank Airport, but for every airport. Who wants to fund?
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
7 months
@JerusalemDemsas I didn't realize how many people take regular showers together.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
This lede!
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 year
Now he's just having fun.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 month
I know I'm a broken record here, but tonight's Dodgers game is supposedly on TBS, but is blacked out! So even if you are stupid enough to subscribe to cable, you can't watch. It's like MLB isn't even trying to have fans.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
1 month
I'm waiting for her to call out the 30-year fixed as an entitlement.
@FairweatherPhD
Daryl Fairweather ⛅
1 month
Yes! Beyonce did reference natural disaster risk in the housing market ( @FannieMae ) on #COWBOYCARTER
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
11 months
The Bay Area, in both tech and politics, has this whole systems thing at its core. It's basically people with this huge vision for what they *everyone else* to be doing, whether that's radical politics or being puppeteered by some app (ahem, like this one).
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
Shit... this should say WORKING OUT. Dear bosses: I am working more than ever.
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@ConorDougherty
Conor Dougherty
3 months
The LA Times news is just so gutting. I don't know how our industry gets out of this, but it's brutal and dispiriting from the outside, so I can only imagine the pain within.
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