Archive for November 2023

Image by Wikimedia Commons Big surprise: the State’s sluggish money-sucker of a High-Speed Rail project asks to be accommodated by new (either elevated/tunneled) infrastructure at its SJ station. Meanwhile, the Caltrain HSR Compatibility Blog asserts that this costly renovation is a superfluous idea, and that sharing Diridon’s platforms with Caltrain makes the most fiscal and…

Image by Wikimedia Commons Despite housing advocates’ cries that big bad private landlords are behind tenant evictions, a Princeton University study shows that—on the contrary—public housing’s responsible for the lion’s share of eviction filings. The Greater LA’s Apartment Association breaks it down below. A Princeton University study concluded that that public housing authorities are more…

A forest walk at twilight. Amber storefront lights. A rare find in a curio shop. Piano keys. Peter Coe Verbica muses on navigating what is lost, what is found, as we kick off our Holiday Season. An Opp Now exclusive. You’re appreciated. That’s the long and the short of it. That’s the purpose of this…

In his exclusive report for Opportunity Now, Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Institute explores how New Urbanist thinking and misguided anti-market policies created one of the most unaffordable housing markets in the world—and how to fix it. First posted on 11.19.2020. High-density, mid-rise and high-rise housing is more costly to build and most homebuyers and…

Image by John K on Flickr Randal O’Toole of the Thoreau Institutes outlines how to start undoing the failed policies of the past that led to Santa Clara County’s current affordability debacle, with an eye toward increasing tax revenues as well. Originally published in November of 2020, O’Toole’s sharp analysis—and conclusions for urban-growth boundaries and…

Image by ILRI on Flickr The State’s HSR project—voter-approved in 2008 and today, billions of dollars later, still without a single actual track to its name—has proven a masterclass in suspense (whether you call it a slow burn or, along with transit experts, a wildly overbudgeted crash and burn). The Cato Institute points out that…

René Magritte: Time Transfixed, 1938. Image by Vilseskogen on Flickr Next Wednesday, a new ad hoc committee overseeing the BART Downtown San Jose extension will meet for the first time. In preparation, Bay Area Transportation Working Group (BATWG) members have compiled a list of key questions for the steering committee to address. BATWG’s letter, in…

Image by The Free Press on Youtube At the Federalist Society’s National Lawyers Convention, Bari Weiss (Free Press founder and editor) explains how many universities avert constitutional mandates and discriminate against certain students’ ideas: via disproportionate “fees,” logistical hurdles, and shaming/pressure. Weiss recalls Stanford speaker Judge Kyle Duncan, whose hecklers were defended by then-DEI dean…

Pál Szinyei Merse: Balloon, 1882. Image in Public Domain To address high living costs, SJ insists on archaic market controls that artificially—and dangerously—cap tenants’ rents. As Loyola University’s Victoria Perrie and Walter Block explain in Political Dialogues, rent control interferes with housing providers’ capacity to maintain and profit from their units, which keeps investors out…