Julio Gonzalez Altamirano
@juliogatx
I write about local public policy, elected officials, and civil society at the Austin Metric newsletter. It’s free and always will be.
When praising dense housing, remember: what matters is that housing is part of dense, walkable neighborhoods. A pocket of apartments on a lonely cul-de-sac off the highway is just a way to force low income people to own cars and drive everywhere, making them poorer.
They have... a very long way to catch up, but the South, Austin in particular, is actually the part of the country building the most dense housing.
“Moderation” (like “abundance”) are words that mean different things inside Austin vs. the Dallas suburbs. Ultimately, the problem with a lot of Yglesias _political_ takes is that they basically are obnoxious ways of saying candidates should target their median voter. Thanks!
I wrote the case for Abundance Democrats to engage in the debate over cultural issues — a key part of the left-populist pitch inside the coalition is the false promise that populist economics will let you get away being out of touch on values issues.
Very interesting thread on an upzoning paper focused on NYC. Let’s not over-interpret for Austin context but the counter-intuitive findings should give folks seeking policymaker roles pause on dismissing the value of “luxury” housing for affordability…
Just read @vincent_rollet's incredible paper on effects of upzoning in NYC. Wow, wow, wow! If CA were a well-governed state, we'd be offering Meta-like pay to bring folks like Vincent into @California_HCD & @Cal_LCI. 🧵/16, with the highlights.
The results are in from the Texas Lineman’s Rodeo! Apprentice Reese B. earned 1st in Hurtman Rescue and 3rd Overall, while one of our BBQ crews took 5th in the brisket cook-off. Huge thanks to all the linemen, apprentices, judges and volunteers who repped Austin Energy so well!
lots of debate over the draft city budget…there’s this whole general fund deficit situation, fire staffing cuts, money from the utility departments getting shuffled around…anyway let’s take a big sip of coffee and check the archives to see what was going on 100 years ago or so
What was the route by which early phone-ownership disrupted development? Biggest by far was younger age of entry to social media. Sure, its correlational, but how about--until we're sure what's happening--no smartphones before 14, no social media before 16? Abstract:
I focused on anxiety/depression in Anglo countries. But @sapien_labs cast a broader net and finds much more extensive psychiatric harm linked to phone-based childhoods, globally. Earlier phone = lower mental health as young adult tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…
For the late Bill Spelman, “it wasn’t about collecting lines in a résumé, it wasn't about making money, it wasn’t about personal accolades, it was about making the world a better place. About being open and fair and compassionate,” his wife told @statesman statesman.com/story/news/loc…
Returning from a few days off and am saddened to see the news of Bill Spelman's passing. He was the smartest elected official I've ever known and he could talk policy for hours. Lucky enough to have had the chance to sit with him at Flightpath a few times to do just that. RIP.
4-person crews make sense for hazardous fire work. But for responding to medical calls? Remember, medical calls are ~90% of the calls for service for AFD. But what percent of workload is med calls? Need AFD to match APD’s open data policy to know for sure…
Another day, another budget story. The city is looking to cut back on OT pay for firefighters as it looks to cut costs in the 2025 budget. Making the change would mean using 3 firefighters on a truck instead of 4. I've got the latest 👇🏽... via @KUT. kut.org/austin/2025-07…
⛈️ @ClimateCentral releases analysis of U.S. Billion Dollar Disasters from 1980-2024. As these events become more common, importance of building codes, weatherization, & #energyefficiency cannot be overstated for safety/resiliency: ow.ly/aWk450WsFf5 #TXenergy #OKenergy