Brendan Dawe
banner
dawe.bsky.social
Brendan Dawe
@dawe.bsky.social
Your friendly neighbourhood Vancouverite

Housing abundance enthusiast. Planning & Real Estate Consultant.

Vive le Canada. Elbows Up
true, it's not all bakersfield
November 25, 2025 at 3:33 PM
I generally find that 'the nimbys' aren't equivalent to 'the voters' when this question is measured rigorously but perhaps this is the case in your green and pleasant land
November 25, 2025 at 2:54 PM
I get back to the 400,000 reservist thing, which DND is walking back because, as you generally note, the public has not been prepped for this problem and doesn’t take it seriously
November 25, 2025 at 6:17 AM
The Ockham razor explanation would seem to increasingly sound like a conspiracy theory
November 25, 2025 at 6:04 AM
I wonder how concerned they are in Ottawa that our neighbour appears to be about to launch a war of aggression in the Western Hemisphere
November 25, 2025 at 5:43 AM
is it though? Like the Germans didn't make it work either time, it worked against Japan in part because the IJN basically refused to do anti-submarine warfare, and despite Cold War western assumptions the Soviet Union never planned to go for it either.
November 25, 2025 at 12:12 AM
this was also projected for the thankfully never-built Surrey Light Rail.

I don't understand how this keeps happening
November 24, 2025 at 10:33 PM
Why does this keep happening?
Did I hear correctly that it will be slower and less frequent than the Finch buses?
November 24, 2025 at 9:55 PM
Setting himself up to be left holding the bag here when Carney doesn’t give him any money
November 24, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Americans believe all kinds of absurd and contradictory things why not this?
November 24, 2025 at 5:38 PM
it's not really desert though
November 24, 2025 at 5:37 PM
I don’t think it’s difficult to trick X the everything app into believing an account is US based
November 24, 2025 at 4:37 PM
Presumably handy that no one ever tried to bombard this particular installation unlike many of its vintage
November 24, 2025 at 6:13 AM
It was 2.4kv DC until the 1990s modernization
November 24, 2025 at 5:32 AM
The lack of the “long modernization” tells such a story about mainline rail in this country
November 24, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Ya the coup-proofing imperative to be with the main military force is the main driver, but there was also a desire to get away from the urban Romans and their sense that they were the proper owners of the empire
November 23, 2025 at 6:24 PM
Paris->Versailles
Rome->assorted Late Antique administrative centres
November 23, 2025 at 5:54 PM
The main asset of a strong mediaeval king was a tenant farming business that covered a surprising proportion of whatever kingdom’s agricultural land. That said the literal crown jewel could stand as a meaningfully large reserve fund at the scale of the mediaeval economy
November 23, 2025 at 5:39 PM
The analogy actually kind of works. “The Crown jewels“ were never the source of the King‘s power that would be “the Crown Estate” or ‘the material productive endowment of the regime’
Really important to stress that the Crown Jewels of the US higher education system were never the Ivies or elite SLACs (other countries have equivalents of these) but the well-funded, large, cheap, and excellently staffed public state university systems bringing high quality education to the masses.
One of the bragging rights that the US ed system had in the 20th century is that we didn't have education tracks. Essentially, any kid could go to a CC or state school & major in whatever they wanted to (obviously an oversimplification). I fear this aspect of the American dream is dying.
November 23, 2025 at 5:25 PM
The greatest trick the nimbys ever pulled was convincing planners and electeds that self-selected public hearing attendees were a representative sample of the voters
November 23, 2025 at 4:42 PM
The voters are less a problem than is often assumed
November 23, 2025 at 4:38 PM
lol, LMAO even
I think this is mostly San Francisco finally shrugging off the pandemic, but it is *really* funny that rent prices in San Francisco shot up *immediately* after the city banned RealPage and other algorithmic price setting software.

My pre trends are incredible!
November 23, 2025 at 4:34 PM
They’re not strictly the same (namely, public money for investment) but they overlap extensively
November 23, 2025 at 5:51 AM
Alas that would do nothing in Canada
November 23, 2025 at 5:50 AM