Mark Dinan

Allow data centers but only if 20% of the GPUs are set aside as “affordable” compute for low-income agents.

@Greensideup7 @GovPressOffice East Palo Alto has the finest hotel in California.

@GovPressOffice If that’s true, name the spots they are visiting, hint, it’s not Discovery near Old Sacramento, Stockton, South Central LA, East Palo Alto, the Market street BART station, Marysville, Oakland or Richmond.

THE GOLDEN STATE STAYS #1

@jasonc_nc I am presuming that “fire trucks” are in this category

There is an absolutely massive amount of cope from people if you dare suggest there might be instances where another country does something better than we do.

@CSeaseasiv You are aware that sarcasm was banned on the internet at the 2018 Waterloo Conference?

@markdinan The problem is these systems unfairly target criminals.

I serve on East Palo Alto City Council, and we recently had a contentious meeting in which two council member, Ruben Abrica & Carlos Romero, tried to kill Flock Cameras. We kept Flock. Over the weekend our police caught a shooting suspect in under three hours. Flock works!

For 45 years, Berkeley built virtually no new housing. By the mid-2010s, it was the most expensive college town in America. Shortly thereafter, YIMBYs took over and kicked off a building boom. Today, nominal rents are below 2018 rates—remarkable progress on affordability.

@Matt_Webster00 @Flock_Safety East Palo Alto - which once had the highest murder rate in the country - recently celebrated 2 years without a homicide. Correlation or causation that Flock was implemented in 2024?

@markdinan @Flock_Safety Love to see this.

@VentageArod Rodgers mobility early in his career was key to his success

Is there anything prettier than watching Aaron Rodgers run with the football🤔

Transit investment without land use reform is a library with no books. Good infrastructure. Wrong policy. You can build the best light rail in the world. If the stations are surrounded by single-family zoning, the ridership ceiling is low. Always.

@nbcbayarea Suspect caught using Flock cameras

NEW: Police are investigating a shooting involving two vehicles that left two people hurt in East Palo Alto on Saturday. nbcbay.com/RyANQOq

May '22 at 6pm, Jack Farrell Park in East Palo Alto, while kids were on the playground with more playing baseball, shots rang out between multiple parties. 1 defendant, Luis Javier Mariscal (40), has pled no contest to felony assault with a gun, sentenced to 8 yrs, 8 mths prison.

Blue states have built some of the country’s most generous safety net programs. But in places like California and New York, those gains are being swallowed by the cost of housing. That’s the core problem: Poverty isn’t just about how much money people have. It’s also about how much it costs to meet basic needs. Cash transfers, SNAP, and the Child Tax Credit still matter, but in high-cost states, redistribution can only go so far if rent keeps rising faster than income. Read Zach Parolin on why building more housing is an anti-poverty strategy: theargumentmag.com/p/you-cant-red…

@Sightline epasun.org/the-greenest-h… I wrote about this a couple of months ago in East Palo Alto context

Housing—and apartment buildings specifically—may be the United States’ biggest climate opportunity of the Trump era.  sightline.org/apartments-are…

The most effective welfare programs serve to mitigate extreme downside risk. Inclusionary zoning, in contrast, offers a few people tremendous upside and nothing to everyone else. It is the precise opposite of how a welfare program should be designed.

To all you inclusionary zoning supporters out there: 10% of 0 is 0. You're not creating any affordable housing with IZ if you don't build any housing in the first place.

Everyone who cares about climate should understand this. Texas, with no pro-climate policies, has blown passed California in clean energy. In large part because Texas has less red tape and makes it easier to build.

@patrickc I've been doing a deep dive on all things housing in the last few years, particularly since I was elected to East Palo Alto's City Council in 2024. It is a very radicalizing experience once you understand all the barriers to housing production. Nothing makes sense.

I'm interested in "trapped buildings": those that couldn't be built today (because of zoning and code changes) but also can't be substantially modified or demolished (because of historic protection rules). One of those phenomena that really makes one wonder what exactly we're trying to do. Has anyone ever estimated what fraction of buildings in major cities fall into this category? When I asked Claude about San Francisco, it concluded: "If forced to give a single number with a single confidence rating: roughly 100,000 buildings — about two-thirds of San Francisco's physical structures — sit in the trap as a practical matter. Confidence: moderate. The number could be 70,000 or 130,000 depending on how strictly you operationalize "can't be substantially modified.""

SPUR's housing policy director argues San Francisco's fees and affordable housing mandates, each defensible alone, are collectively making projects impossible. Evidence: 74,000 homes in the pipeline, only 4% under construction.

Made a Mission Revival version. You can easily build a 10-unit, 6-story complex with a single stair and elevator, 1 parking spot per unit, and a 30-foot-wide backyard on most lots in California quite cheaply. Imagine suburban-style mass production, but for apartments.

@SukritGanesh 100% agree. Funding BMR units by taxing new development with IZ leads to cancelled projects, Less housing, higher rents, and displacement.

@markdinan Oh my bad. But yes 15% is still high; frankly they should’ve made it all market rate and then used the massive tax windfall to fund BMR housing.

Menlo Park’s riciculously high inclusionary zoning requirement of 18% ended up killing Meta’s 1700 unit redevelopment in the city. A spokesperson blamed shifting market conditions - an interesting statement given that rents and home prices in Menlo Park are incredibly high.