Dom
dbecon.bsky.social
Dom
@dbecon.bsky.social
Economist. Mostly housing, sometimes food, rarely the Canberra Raiders. Build more homes @sydney.yimby.au
Reposted by Dom
I've been working with @dbecon.bsky.social to work out some figures on Brisbane's zoning and we started looking at character restrictions.

Within 5km of Brisbane's CBD, a whopping 64% of all residential properties have some kind of character restrictions. That's 57% of land or 2,204 hectares.
October 3, 2025 at 7:26 AM
Before PIA or any of the other ticket clippers are allowed to whinge about a 'planner shortage', can we try not needing:
- 60 pages of documentation
- a month long notification period - a public panel meeting

To permit a restaurant to convert to a bar, with the same operating hours!
December 11, 2024 at 7:56 AM
By far the best thing Noah Smith has written in a while. Krugman's simply the best to ever do it, and a role model for us all to aspire to
How Paul Krugman changed the public face of economics
He's a great economist, but he also changed how we talk about the subject.
www.noahpinion.blog
December 11, 2024 at 5:39 AM
Reposted by Dom
There is not a Party in Australia which is honest with itself about housing. The Libs just want the money tap to flow votes forever. Labor wants prices to rise and come down at the same time. The greens want massive public housing builds but without actually altering any suburbs. None of it is real
December 10, 2024 at 11:00 PM
Reposted by Dom
We’re going to fall well short of our housing accord target and DPHI is responding by watering down their reforms to the consistency of skim milk.

People are sleeping in their cars and they’re handwringing over whether four storey apartments are “discordant” with $3m terraces adjacent to the CBD.
December 10, 2024 at 10:30 AM
Planning is all about matching development to infrastructure capacity- that's why we build all our housing out West where half the kids are in demountable classrooms and don't build where principals are desperate for more kids.
In a pattern we’re seeing across Sydney’s wealthiest suburbs, Bondi Public’s student numbers are going down so much they’re leaving classrooms empty and teachers are losing their jobs.

Isn’t planning supposed to match homes to infrastructure? Is Waverley Council asleep at the wheel?
December 9, 2024 at 5:17 AM
is this a.... special?
December 7, 2024 at 9:00 AM
possibly the thing I am most smug about Sydney relative to other cities is that almost everyone taps on the bus
December 7, 2024 at 3:34 AM
Today I crossed an important milestone- every single employer I have ever had (except for my current one) have now backpaid me for paying under the award. 5 from 5 baby!
December 6, 2024 at 9:57 PM
I'm far from an expert but to my untrained eye, compared to 75% of the buildings in the cbd, the casino is pretty good!

Never really understood the hate it gets. Nice public foreshore, reasonably attractive design. It's fine!
Packer’s Sydney Casino
From concept to reality.
- easy as when harbourfront public land gifted to suss private interests, with tender, without disclosure
#privatisedsydney
December 6, 2024 at 9:24 AM
Attempting a Mariyung gunzel trip this evening, currently a v set and an oscar have been sitting on the platform for 20 minutes
December 5, 2024 at 6:18 AM
Reposted by Dom
3) Check your fucking code.
November 21, 2024 at 6:01 PM
Australian banks today are infinitely leaner and more efficient than they used to be, which has occurred in response to their margins getting absolutely battered since the 90s.

This is a good thing. Cheap loans are more important than wasteful branches for boomers.
December 4, 2024 at 3:48 AM
Appalling stories from the Northern Beaches Hospital. It shouldn't be surprising that they're struggling with staffing when the only housing nearby are $4m mansions and public transport options are pathetic.

If we want to fix our hospitals, we need to build homes for staff to live.
December 4, 2024 at 1:42 AM
Fewer more cursed phrases in the English language than 'Freakonomics Analysis Needed"
Property investors: why don’t people with disabilities just die so I can buy their houses?
December 3, 2024 at 10:10 AM
Great paper on a rare topic: impact of planning changes in a city without a critical shortage of housing
December 3, 2024 at 5:13 AM
There's a bloke who's now on his 5th day in a row posting multi paragraph screeds in the Balmain facebook page about how this building being painted green is an affront to the priceless heritage of the area.
December 2, 2024 at 11:15 AM
My work has an in-house, walled-off version of GPT-4o for use with more sensitive data, but it always seems to give substantially worse answers than public gpt-4o.

Is the data leakage really important? Or is it not really 4o but a different thing entirely
December 2, 2024 at 1:21 AM
Green shoots! Unambiguously good news, but still a long way to go
December 2, 2024 at 12:45 AM
bliss
November 30, 2024 at 7:48 AM
making a pilgrimage this evening
November 30, 2024 at 7:03 AM
Reposted by Dom
November 28, 2024 at 9:26 AM
Reposted by Dom
Why do too many urban developments look so gross & bloated?
Well start with such dismal ‘planning controls’ & go downhill fast from there.
Bulk, fat footprints with so much dead space, multiple setbacks, inadequate floor to floor heights, token ‘heritage retention’…
So need more design intelligence
November 28, 2024 at 1:52 AM
This is the consequence of not allowing enough small units to be built! A basic unit is not the bottom of the housing spectrum, and we should let more people trade up into one.
November 28, 2024 at 5:26 AM
Reposted by Dom
Man I cannot endorse this abstract more
November 25, 2024 at 11:00 PM