Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦
@tobyhardtospell
Housing advocate @WestsideForEv. Digital comms manager. Dad x2. I used to do stand-up and @RoastBattle. I still do, but I used to more.
Your regular reminder that every small town in America regularly built affordable, sustainable, beautiful housing in walkable neighborhoods over 100 years ago. We just spent the last 70 years making it illegal and the last 10 arguing whether it was impossible.
29 Second Street. c. 1875. Downtown, Troy.
LA residents wanted their streets to be safer so they created crosswalks They were celebrated on the news for stepping up when the city fell short So now the city is destroying the crosswalks 🫠
LA city government: “You can trash the city all you want. But don’t fix anything. That’s our job that we are not doing”
To bring down rents, we need to build more homes in the places people want to live. SB 79 will help us do that.
"Insanely competitive" - SF apartment rents surge 11%, the highest rate in the country per @ApartmentList sfchronicle.com/sf/article/apa… Bidding wars and crammed open houses are back. AI, return to office and only a trickle of new development is making this summer feel like the 2010s.
lasted less than a week... jfc. Shame on this city, you clearly have the funds to send machinery to wipe them, but not paint them?
This is awesome - Stoner Park has recently seen DIY residents install benches and now crosswalks faster than it would take LA to coordinate its first interdepartmental meeting on it.
Shout this from the mountaintops. The key housing metrics that should matter to policymakers are pricing and vacancy within the 98% of housing that's already built. That 98% overwhelmingly defines the experience of people trying to find a place to live.
Policymakers’ preoccupation with whether newly-built housing is affordable to poor people is misguided because new homes are a very small percentage of the housing market and because new housing will probably always be more expensive than comparable older housing.
Yes, they are explicitly breaking the law to annoy everyone around them. If only all laws against antisocial behavior were so easy to enforce
Does this type of antisocial behavior deserve a ticket?
This morning, Russia dropped a guided bomb on apartment blocks in Kharkiv. They don’t even bother making excuses or lies about it anymore, because it seems no one really cares. Russia is a terrorist state.
Policymakers’ preoccupation with whether newly-built housing is affordable to poor people is misguided because new homes are a very small percentage of the housing market and because new housing will probably always be more expensive than comparable older housing.
New housing is expensive and not affordable to the poor. But the people who can afford to live in the new building vacate their old home, which is affordable. The affordability benefits of new housing are indirect.
It just goes to show how inefficient the 'private taxi for your burrito' model is relative to the 'collective refrigerated cargo ship for our pizza' model. That final mile delivery vs picking it up at a centralized location makes a huge difference.
It's a modern economic marvel that this pizza is $4.99 while being made in Italy with organic ingredients
Trump/Epstein is a full-on DC dumpster fire right now. 🧵
As a soda expert, I think this whole thing about people preferring cane sugar coke to corn syrup is a crock of baloney. We need blind test tastes. I conducted one... My focus group preferred corn syrup Coke to cane sugar Coke... People prefer the idea of sugar, not the taste.
Abughazaleh: I am from one of those families. I do not want Israeli children to live in fear. And I don't want gazan children to starve to death. And there is no enemy of either state that could want me to wish that or excuse the starvation of children. It is that simple. Food is…
TIL that a recent fire code change requires a pressurized air supply at every floor in a building over 5 stories tall. And only one company manufactures this equipment. The irony is that the rules were created by an organization (not the government) and cities blindly adopted it.
A hidden fire‑safety rule is quietly adding $1+ million to the price of many new apartment buildings. Crazy part? The gear it mandates has been used exactly once in a real US fire. Let’s unpack this 👇
Fun zoning fact: it’s illegal to build a 9-story apartment building across the street from this
While in 90% of America, it’s illegal to combine a coffee shop and residential building, in NYC they’re halfway done building a combination 52-story apartment building and 1000+ foot amusement park ride in the middle of Midtown
A story as old as time… 1st wave gentrifiers complaining about second wave gentrification lmaooo
These guerrilla crosswalk painting parties are organized by our own @_jonnyshotit_! Full news report: ktla.com/news/local-new…
This is awesome - Stoner Park has recently seen DIY residents install benches and now crosswalks faster than it would take LA to coordinate its first interdepartmental meeting on it.
Councilmember @nithyavraman continues to focus on smart, people oriented housing solutions. Thank you Councilmember!
Yeah, Nithya + Blumenfeld have introduced a suite of motions on this exact issue. She was discussing & taking questions on it at the AHLA PAC fundraiser. Agree it doesn't get enough coverage, but def is something we have been pushing locally & statewide cd4.lacity.gov/press-releases…
ICE says in response to my FOIA request that it is ignoring the Laken Riley Act. It says it has NO documents related to the implementation of Trump's first law. Believable?
Will Noem have to explain why she is not enforcing the Laken Riley Act? Will she detail why this administration has chosen to prioritize noncriminals at Home Depot over following the law Congress passed (at Trump's request) that requires them to go violent thieves like this guy
Wow, with a tied 3-3 vote the Philadelphia zoning board DENIED the special exception required to operate this comedy club, despite the support of the local neighborhood association. Painful to watch a small business dream maybe die over a zoom meeting. ocfrealty.com/naked-philly/p…