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."
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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
—>
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.
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:
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!!!
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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?
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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...
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…
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
.
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.
@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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.