justine underhill

Same place. Same people. Completely different outcomes. Why?

35,000 people. One city block. The densest place on Earth.

Crime doesn’t just correlate with poverty. There’s another factor most people miss.

"New York made one change. Traffic dropped immediately."

TVs are cheap. Housing isn’t. Something strange happened to the economy.

50,000 people at the Colosseum… So where did everyone park?

What if the Louvre had to follow U.S. parking laws? It wouldn’t look the same.

A 50-year mortgage sounds more affordable. It might actually make housing more expensive.

A city almost spent $1.7 million on one public toilet. There’s a reason this keeps happening.

California planned high-speed rail 30 years ago. It still isn’t finished.

One of the cheapest types of housing used to be everywhere. Then cities made it illegal.

Why do some college textbooks cost $300+? The answer is more complicated than you think.

Friday Video: Guess Which Argument Can Get a NIMBY To Change Their Mind About New Housing usa.streetsblog.org/2026/03/20/fri… via @StreetsblogUSA and @jj_under

@DevV990 @CSElmendorf @dbroockman @j_kalla I’m a big fan of “Form-based Code” — it basically sets up expectations for building form and streetscape, which makes it easier to get beautiful, walkable development without subjective, case-by-case battles (and thus speeds up the process)

@jj_under @CSElmendorf @dbroockman @j_kalla Justine can you do something to encourage beautiful buildings as a city councilor?

Which arguments ACTUALLY change people’s minds about housing? Last year I worked with researchers testing different messages, and the results were... surprising! New video explaining the results: youtube.com/watch?v=aCKrQ4… Enjoyed working with @CSElmendorf @dbroockman @j_kalla

A town needed a dam to stop flooding. Engineers planned it for years. Beavers built one in weeks. There’s a bigger story here.

39,000 people had to drive 2 hours to see a doctor. A hospital tried to help… but got blocked. Here’s how that happens.

@CSElmendorf lol next study: how do videos about studies about videos affect video studiers’ studies

Watching a short-form video about the effects of exposure to short-form video is a little meta...but fun!

Even if you’ve never seen the show, it’s one of the best explorations of cities, walls & control I’ve ever seen in fiction and it has a lot to say about our real-world cities

New deep dive video: I analyzed the urban design of Ba Sing Se in Avatar: The Last Airbender youtube.com/watch?v=N1_XjA…