Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1h

The outcry over AirBnB is largely a story of a long term housing shortage crashing straight into a short term housing shortage

Oh The Urbanity! @ohtheurbanity.bsky.social · 1h

I’m not wedded to AirBnB specifically. There are valid concerns about things like partying in residential buildings.

But it clearly reflects a lack of hotel supply in many cities, especially apartment-style rooms.

It’s also nice to have hotels that aren’t either downtown or out by a highway!

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 4h

Interesting. Wonder if carbon steel would behave closer to stainless or cast iron

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 5h

Global battery electric vehicle sales, first 3 quarters
2023: 8.9M
2034: 11.25M
2025: 14.7M

Tesla sales, first 3 quarters
2023: 1.32M
2024: 1.29M
2025: 1.21M

On net, there’s been 5.8 million new electric vehicle customers and Tesla managed to capture less than 0% of them

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 6h

After years of buying non stick that would inevitably degrade, and having no success with stainless and ceramic, my carbon steel pan is amazing and is used for everything now. It’s the way to go

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

As California moves to ban non-stick pans, culinary experts say British Columbians should consider the same | CBC News

As you’re pulling out pots and pans to cook Thanksgiving dinner this weekend, some culinary experts are warning Canadians about the pitfalls of a common, convenient tool you might be turning to: non-s...

www.cbc.ca

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 15h

The big upgrade from Claude to Codex is that when codex goes deep into major edits and screws up the file it can almost always recover, while Claude would often dig itself into an unrecoverable mess.

Seriously impressive stuff.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 17h

Interesting, seems like it’s working financialpost.com/pmn/business...

Chinese EVs Clog Up Brazil Ports With New Tariffs Cooling Growth

Brazilian ports have been clogged this year with upwards of 70,000 unsold Chinese EVs, in a sign of how hard it’s becoming for China’s automakers to keep up their r…

financialpost.com

Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 18h

You mean allowing lower income folks to buy cheaper imported EVs? Interesting idea but yeah tough to implement.

Maybe middle ground is allow Chinese imports if they’re built here or in Mexico. Offer a bonus for local production. Then worst case we strengthen ties with Mexico.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 18h

Yup. No point appeasing the US when they see every import as a failure of trade policy that must be corrected.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 18h

I feel like that doesn’t have to be tied to housing. No one should have an overcrowded school whether they have housing built near them or not.

If we allow it, the market will also correct for this to some extent by building housing where schools have capacity because that’s a selling point

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 18h

Every vehicle should have a hardware off switch for the modem and be fully functional (minus features requiring live internet) when driven in offline mode.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 18h

Deal.

Though we need some kind of auto privacy laws here. Regardless of origin, consumers should be able to ensure that their car is not sending any data back to the manufacturer without consent
www.ctvnews.ca/world/trumps...

China will remove canola tariffs if Canada scraps EV levies: ambassador

China will remove its tariffs on Canadian agriculture — including on canola products — if Canada scraps its levies on Chinese electric vehicles, that country’s ambassador says.

www.ctvnews.ca

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 22h

Thing is, most won’t care that it brings benefits no matter how much you show them. Those benefits are not primarily realized by existing residents

As a society we need to accept that existing residents aren’t often happy about change and still make the choice to prioritize people having housing.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

A big part of it is just accepting that change always brings opposition and unease.
Best we can do is spread the change around equitably and try to prevent jamming up the works for years so that the necessary change becomes more and more drastic (big whoops on that one)

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

As frustrating as it is to see people railing against housing, it’s human nature to dislike change and even ardent housing activists are likely to feel unease or concern when a property next to them is redeveloped or a tree is cut down

No amount of consultation or design changes eliminates that.

Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

Tale as old as time.

In Victoria we have residents of the first phase of an apartment project angrily protesting against the approval of the second stage.

Our planning system needs to be built to be resilient against this predictable opposition and still produce abundant housing

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

They’re actually fighting but I told them to pose so it looks like they’re friends

Two cats together face to face on a suitcase looking up at the camera

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

Tale as old as time.

In Victoria we have residents of the first phase of an apartment project angrily protesting against the approval of the second stage.

Our planning system needs to be built to be resilient against this predictable opposition and still produce abundant housing

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 1d

Great article.

Edmonton doesn’t get nearly enough credit. Yes their detached house affordability is mostly due to sprawl, but they are also leading on reforms for abundant multifamily housing.

Dr. Mike P. Moffatt @mikepmoffatt.bsky.social · 1d

Fantastic piece by Don Iveson on what Edmonton is doing right on housing. There are lots of lessons here for other communities.

The big picture on housing, density and affordability

How Edmonton's approach fights for affordability and fiscal efficiency

civicgood.substack.com

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

Awesome.

Incidentally the bad actor here isn’t the IRS or CRA, but the tax lobby and captured elected representatives that have blocked auto-filing for years

www.taxfairness.ca/en/resources...

www.propublica.org/article/insi...

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

What we say vs what we do

Say
🌎 Climate crisis: we need to rapidly decarbonize
🏘️ Housing crisis: we need more and cheaper housing

Do
🌎 Climate crisis: let’s put 154% tariff on cheap solar and 100% on cheap EVs
🏘️ Housing crisis: Let’s heavily restrict multifamily housing and tax it like it’s a sin

Jens von Bergmann @jensvb.bsky.social · 2d

I first read that as 15.4%. Holy moly, we really don’t want solar in Canada.

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

The rationale behind our 154% duty is to protect local manufacturing. I get that.

But even with that in place there is just very little manufacturing of panels in Canada. Its around 1000 jobs in the whole country vs tens of thousands in install / servicing we could gain if solar was a lot cheaper

Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

This is how cheap our solar could be if we didn’t tax it like cigarettes

This system would cost over $30k in Canada vs $8500 in Australia

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

The rationale is to protect local industry so I get that part, but even with the tariffs in place there is just very little manufacturing of panels in Canada. Its around 1000 jobs in the whole country vs tens of thousands in install / servicing we could gain if solar was a lot cheaper

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

154% tariffs on Chinese solar panels coming into Canada

There’s more to it, for example we have no one like Aldi installing at scale

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 2d

This is how cheap our solar could be if we didn’t tax it like cigarettes

This system would cost over $30k in Canada vs $8500 in Australia

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Reposted by Leo Spalteholz

Homes For Living @homesforliving.ca · 2d

Local municipalities, including Saanich and Esquimalt, have brought forward motions to add restrictions that making multi-family housing less viable.

It’s encouraging to see the provincial government recognize this and implement measures to address it.

news.gov.bc.ca/releases/202...

Introduction of housing and municipal affairs statutes amendment act, 2025

Government introduced the housing and municipal affairs statutes amendment act, 2025 (Bill 25) to the legislative assembly on Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025.

news.gov.bc.ca

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Leo Spalteholz @leospalteholz.bsky.social · 3d

One day we will stop punching ourselves in the face on housing

Ryan Jabs @ryanjabs.bsky.social · 3d

It’s this craziness that led to CMHC’s “standardized” sixplex design where they split the staircase inside and outside the building so the doors were only 1.5m above grade. It illustrates how dumb the rule is as this is a less safe design.

www.housingcatalogue.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/designs/bc/c...

Courtyard Sixplex

www.housingcatalogue.cmhc-schl.gc.ca

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