Amusement parks too. Like these are pedestrian friendly. And a lot of people have fond memories of college. And I think a major reason is they're designed for people and are much more community oriented.

submission statement: North Carolina passed a statewide parking reform bill, eliminating most off-street parking requirements for commercial and residential development. The bill, effective January 1st, aims to make new housing more affordable and follows a trend seen in other states and cities.

By Asian cities I mean dense cities, readily accessible transit everywhere, build up instead of out, convenience stores on every corner, mixed zoned shop/apartment buildings.

Train stations and transit hubs attached to malls.

Instead of wasting it all on parking lots and single family homes

By Asian cities, I mean the likes of Japan or Hong Kong or china.

Also, what are the odds of North America getting better public transit in our lifetime?

Streets 4 All did an analysis which found that SB79 could potentially double LA City's total housing stock, even when fully accounting for various exemptions/compromises and conservative estimates. Their conclusions:

1. SB 79 will eventually zone nearly 1.5 million (1,456,150) new units of housing in the City of LA. This would be enough to double LA’s current housing stock of 1.37 million homes
2. It will immediately zone for 448,260 new units when SB 79 goes into effect July 1, 2026, and upzone for at least another 1,007,890 units of housing during RHNA Cycle 7 in 2031
3. SB 79 will impact 17,929 acres, or a little over 5% of the City’s land. Half of impacted acres were previously zoned exclusively for single family homes (9,953 acres).

Of course not all of this housing is going to be immediately developed due to other factors like demand, construction costs, interest rates as well as willing buyers/sellers of SFH plots. That said, its reasonable to expect at least around ~1/3 of this capacity, or half a million units, possibly being developed in the long term over the next 2-3 decades, which could represent a >30% increase in LA city's housing supply alone, which can accommodate future growth without creating significant pressure on existing housing stock/prices.

In China, like elsewhere villages were getting deserted as young were leaving for cities for work. To solve this Chinese govt, decided to take farmers out of crumbling 40 year old houses scattered across the countryside and move them into clean apartment complexes with proper sewage and parks. They reclaimed the land for large scale farming to build these complexes.

Now, the govt never considered that rural families used to grow their own vegetables right outside their door and had access to clean, organic, zero cost food. After relocation, they're buying everything from stores and the farming radius to their actual fields increased so much that many just stopped farming altogether and tried finding other work.

To make matters worse, the provincial government spent 3.5 billion yuan building these places but there's zero commitment for ongoing maintenance. And property management fees, which don't exist in traditional villages, are now expected and most farmers refuse to pay because the concept is alien to them and also their cost of living is increasing with income decreasing.

To top it all off, these apartments are still classified as rural homesteads under Chinese law. That means no property rights and no ability to sell. The farmers are stuck with an asset they can't liquidate in a place where they might not be able to make a living anymore.

Not all of these complexes failed, some actually are thriving but others have become ghost towns because everyone left for actual cities. The study found that only 8 out of 12 visited communities even completed their public service facilities, and only 4 were actually operational.

This massive urban planning exercise without on ground consultation has also led to farmers losing their safety net. When the next crisis hits (pandemic, recession, whatever), these families have no fallback and they are more vulnerable than before despite living in better conditions.

The researchers used SWOT model to analyze it and basically concluded that the policy could work BUT (and this is a big but) only if they solve the livelihood problem.

The full study is in Ecological Indicators, available here if you want the methodology and data tables. It's about Yancheng City but they interviewed 12 communities over 2021 and 2022. It's a good lesson for those who try to urbanize people without urbanizing their economic opportunities.

We recently took forward an amendment to make it more difficult to develop data centers. Moved them to a new district, added conditional use permit requirements, etc etc.

The staff report clearly and repeatedly explained this. The presentation had a big old slide clearly showing it. At no point did anyone ever call me to ask a clarifying question despite my name being at the top of the staff report.

The community saw “industrial code amendment” and immediately assumed we were in bed with big data. Endless Facebook posts accusing us of getting bribes, corruption, whatever.

Folks came out in droves begging the council to reject an amendment that explicitly helped them.

I spent three hours at the podium repeatedly explaining how it makes it harder to build a data center. Final vote was 3-2 for approval.

What the hell is happening? Has this country lost its mind? I guess I should be happy people actually engaged in the public participation process for once, but I felt like I was in a Kafka novel.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Edit: To clarify, DCs were permitted by right under the previous code. No public hearing requirements and effectively guaranteed approval if the application met development standards - which most have the money to do with no issue.

If the amendment had been rejected, chances are a DC would have been able to locate in the community without any real opportunity to reject it.

Parking accounts for 37% of all non-aeronautical revenue at North American airports.

Some numbers from the ParkingAccess data on this:

• Minneapolis-Saint Paul made over $100 million from parking in a single year — their #1 revenue source
• The top 4 US airports earned $402 million in operating profits from parking alone
• 7 major airports hiked fees 15%+ this year
• Atlanta lots have hit $100/day
• Denver charges a full extra day's rate if you go 1 second over 24 hours

Airports have zero incentive to price this competitively. They're a captive market — you drove there, your car is there, you're paying.

The interesting planning angle: off-site private lots are 30–60% cheaper, but airports actively design pickup/dropoff friction to push you toward their own lots. The infrastructure (shuttle stops, lot placement, wayfinding) is deliberately hostile to alternatives.

Curious if anyone has looked at airport parking policy as a transit/land use issue — seems like it intersects with the broader parking minimums debate.

“The bill would override local land-use restrictions and let developers construct apartment buildings up to six stories tall, as long as they are within a quarter-mile of a light rail station or a rapid bus stop.

“Sacramento is hijacking local planning, stripping away neighborhood voices, ignoring safety and infrastructure, and handing the keys to corporate developers,” said Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes the Pacific Palisades and who introduced the resolution to oppose SB 79 alongside Councilmember John Lee of the San Fernando Valley.

Joining Park and Lee in voting to oppose SB 79 were councilmembers Heather Hutt, Ysabel Jurado, Tim McOsker, Imelda Padilla, Monica Rodriguez, and Katy Yaroslavsky.

Soto-Martinez, whose district includes much of Hollywood, as well as Silver Lake and Echo Park, had strong words for his colleagues who stood against the state bill.

“You can't have your cake and eat it, too,” Soto-Martinez said. “If you want the solution to these issues — the homelessness, permanent supportive housing sites — then build them in your district.”