American urban policy: worse than a nuclear bomb

The purpose of a system is what it does. And the purpose of LA—and much of urban America’s—municipal permitting system is to empower the hall monitor class. This has nothing to do with safety. It’s just kissing the ring: an exercise of power. No, you can’t go to the bathroom

I admire the bravery of Karen Bass to get ratioed on every single tweet.

The Overton window only scales so far. Social opprobrium worked pre-social media in a way it really can’t now. The worst ideas can achieve instant escape velocity because few souls yearn as deeply for community as the wretched.

The Attorney General either misunderstands or doesn’t care about the First Amendment to the constitution she’s sworn to uphold.

Government coercion to force Jimmy Kimmel off the air for his recent remarks is patently unconstitutional, regardless of how you personally feel about them. Perhaps specifically because of how you feel about them. There’s a reason it’s our first amendment. Shameful behavior.

After pushing producers out of the state, California now imports 75% of its oil from Alaska and abroad, including Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and Ecuador. Now the extraction just happens elsewhere and has to be shipped halfway around the world. wsj.com/business/energ…

If LA’s Inside Safe program maintained this pace and not a single new person became homeless, it would take five years to solve homelessness in the city.

“Local control” is largely just a euphemism for a few dozen people with too much time on their hands telling you whether or not you can build. Outside nuisance cases (heavy industry, strip clubs, pot shops, etc) you should be free to build whatever you want on your property.

This is what a one-party supermajority looks like. Candidates are comfortable expressing open contempt for a huge portion of the electorate. So confident in their grip on power that their willingness and ability to persuade have fully atrophied.

The head of the LADWP makes $750k and it takes more than 9 months to get them to turn on utilities for a new building in the midst of a housing crisis.

Every time you say the word webinar your aura goes down -10 points