Mark R. Brown, AICP, CNU

There are about 30 other U.S. cities that need to do what Seattle did.

I'm going to make some obvious points. (1) Blowing up all the oil infrastructure in the Middle East is an insane idea, and may well result in a global economic crash and humanitarian crisis unrivaled in the lives of those now living. We're talking about the price of everything everywhere rising, from food to gas, at a moment when inflation was already high. All of that will be laid at the feet of the authors of this war. (2) The antebellum status quo of Feb 27, 2026 was just not that bad, but we're unlikely to return to it. Expect indefinite, long-term, ongoing disruptions to everything out of the Middle East. (3) Also assume tech financing crashes for the indefinite future. The genius plan to get the Gulf states caught in the crossfire has incinerated much of the funding for LPs, for datacenters, and for IPOs. Anyone in tech who supported this war may soon learn the meaning of "force majeure" as funding gets yanked. (4) Many capital allocators will instead be allocating much further down Maslow's hierarchy of needs, towards useful basic things like food and energy. (5) It's fortunate that all those progressives yelled about the "climate crisis." Yes, their reasoning about timelines was wrong, and much of the money was wasted in graft, but the result was right: we all need energy independence from the Middle East, pronto. It's also fortunate that Elon and China autistically took climate seriously. Now they're going to need to ship a billion solar panels, electric vehicles, batteries, nuclear power plants, and the like to get everyone off oil, immediately. (6) It's not just an oil and gas problem, of course. It's also a fertilizer problem, and a chemical precursor problem. Maybe some new sources will come online at the new prices, but it takes time to dial stuff up, particularly at this scale, so shortages are almost a certainty. That said, China has actually scaled up coal-to-chemicals[a,c] (C2C), and there's also something more sci-fi called Power-to-X[b] which turns arbitrary power + water + air into hydrocarbons. But all of that will need to get accelerated. I have a background in chemical engineering so may start funding things in this area. (7) Ultimately, this war is going to result in tremendous blame for anyone associated with it. It's a no-win scenario to blow up this much infrastructure for so many people. Simply not worth it for whatever objective they thought they were going to attain. But unless you're actually in a position to stop the madness, the pragmatic thing to do is: scramble to mitigate the fallout to yourself, your business, and your people. [a]: reuters.com/business/energ… [b]: alfalaval.com/industries/ene… [c]: reuters.com/sustainability…

Qatar Gas CEO : We incurred a $20 billion loss at the facility we built for $26 billion two years ago.

@heshie @nikitabier Exactly. Short AI slop to summarize longer AI slop.

@nikitabier IMO this defeats the purpose of long form and will further atrophy our ability to focus on anything for more then 2 seconds

We’re rolling out summaries for Articles now. Just tap the Summarize button if you want to know if it’s worth your time to read it (or if your attention span is 12 seconds).

My new Substack piece: Building disconnected, piecemeal bike lanes over decades is the wrong way to make cycling politically and culturally accepted (link in reply).

JUST ONE MORE LANE BRO JUST ONE MORE LANE BRO JUST ONE MORE LANE BRO I SWEAR THIS TIME IT'LL FIX TRAFFIC BRO

Higher oil prices means higher jet fuel prices means higher airline ticket prices. A high speed electric train network is going to look like a wise decision in the coming months.

Sprawl makes transit 100x more difficult to implement.

Too bad we designed America so that people are required to have a car in order to have a job and social life.

My Substack piece: LA is Building More Rail, But Can It Create A Transit-Riding Culture? (Link in reply)

While increasing your energy bill by 30%.

@Eric_Erins I'm good.

100 of us could make Dubuque Iowa heaven on earth if we wanted to

I posted this reply as a half-joke, but I asked Grok to list James Cameron's movies in reverse order of their cost, and it mirrors how I would rank them from best to worst. 1. The Terminator (1984) — ~$6.4–7 million. 2. Aliens (1986) — ~$18–25 million. 3. The Abyss (1989) — ~$70 million. 4. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) — ~$94–100 mil. 5. True Lies (1994) — ~$100–120 million. 6. Titanic (1997) — ~$200 million. 7. Avatar (2009) — ~$237–250 million. 8. Avatar: The Way of Water (2022) — ~$350–460 mil. 9. Avatar: Fire and Ash (2025) — ~$350–400 million+.

In all seriousness, I've repeatedly pointed out this problem with Waymo (especially if you put an unaccompanied child in one). In situations where a human driver could swerve out of the way (or even hit the person if they have a weapon), the Waymo will just sit there and potentially endanger the passenger(s). Meanwhile, they're tapping on a screen and hoping a person thousands of miles away will be able to fix things.

The past has become so glamorized that working for minimum wage at Blockbuster is now a video game.

@Crime_Penguin Horrific take.

Everyone who advocates for circa 1920s streetcars on this goddamned website should be forced to spend an entire day riding the St. Charles Streetcar in New Orleans so they can understand that leaving those relics in the past with horse drawn carriages was the CORRECT decision!

@mnolangray Sometimes, potheads make good points.

Back when I was cleaning pools, I worked with a pothead fratboy. He used to rant, why are we driving giant cars everywhere? Why aren't we driving golf carts in cities? I've never heard of a golf cart killing anyone? I used to say, man, give it a rest.

Had Miami not demolished this, you'd spend 40% less time in traffic.

Three observations: 1) This was built a long time ago before our construction and infrastructure costs spiraled out of control. We must lower costs. Milan recently built a new driverless metro line (M4) with 21 stations and an airport connection for about €2 billion. 2) Crime, drugs, and weapons are basically non-existent on airport trains because of TSA screening. Public transit systems must improve safety by enforcing fares and putting more police on platforms and trains. 3) Eliminating train drivers will require tough conversations with organized labor.