America is a Pastoralpunk Dystopia
banner
pastoralpunk.bsky.social
America is a Pastoralpunk Dystopia
@pastoralpunk.bsky.social
Let's be honest here, I mostly post about trains. Well, cities too.

I currently work in the Japanese education sector but I'd rather work with trains.

I'm a proud Philly expat so expect to see lots of stuff about PA and Pennsylvania too.
This incredible coconut cupcake treat, for example, is a Filipino macaroon
December 5, 2025 at 9:55 AM
In a meme-able format
December 3, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Thanks for pointing that out! But I was thinking less of the loess and more of the sharp escarpments bounding the North China Plain being analogous to extremely flat coastal plain -> escarpment -> high plateau, like the marked escarpments in attached
December 1, 2025 at 3:18 PM
A story of right wing media bias in two tweets, about the stories the media chooses to underemphasize and overemphasize, and who benefits from these irregular emphases
December 1, 2025 at 8:21 AM
Well...uh...I'm fucked
November 27, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Kiba might be Japan's earliest deep-bore tunnel station, and it shows, with its narrow access shafts and this--steel tunnel lining instead of the usual concrete
November 24, 2025 at 11:09 PM
American traffic engineers would NEVER
November 16, 2025 at 7:37 AM
One of the weird things I've noticed about Enoden is that (unless I'm very much mistaken) it's the only Japanese railway that uses Jacobs bogies in its rolling stock, where its usage seems to be mostly about maximizing capacity given a very restrictive physical plant
November 15, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Get you zoning laws that let you turn your 94-year-old family estate halfway up the mountain into a nice little café

Café Gula, Kamakura, Japan

#yimby
November 15, 2025 at 9:32 AM
In Japanese that kanji is used a lot to describe the sciences, with tons of vocab, like on this word list
November 9, 2025 at 11:02 AM
Wow, there's an easy way and a hard way and the thing is evil enough to choose the Hard Way
November 8, 2025 at 7:13 AM
The first one I grabbed makes it look more eviler than it should, let's try this one
November 8, 2025 at 7:11 AM
Kinda reminds me how the Quaker star vaguely looks like an Evil, Inc. logo

Other Friends should know what I'm talking about here
November 8, 2025 at 7:09 AM
雰囲気が良くて美味い油そば食堂で速い晩ご飯を食べた。今甘い物が欲しい、、、
November 2, 2025 at 7:17 AM
Well they do the same thing in Sweden--famously cold Stockholm!--and you, sir, are a racist asshole

Good day and see you never
October 19, 2025 at 3:49 AM
This is the JR Hokkaido 735 series, responsible for commuter & regional services in and around Sapporo, a city well known for being as cold as Chicago and snowier to boot
October 19, 2025 at 2:29 AM
Wendell Cox has been right all this time
October 16, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Earlier this week there was a serious accident on the Tokyo Den-en-Toshi Line. This accident took place late in the evening, when a local train inbound to the Hanzomon Line sideswiped an out-of-service train parked on a tail track at Kajigaya station, not far from the major junction at Mizonokuchi
October 11, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Most PA counties are already part of an MSA or μSA, or else we can use the state "regions" for this, but the bottom line is that, if Harrisburg can't come to consensus on funding priorities, then those priorities have to be met at a level between county and state
September 15, 2025 at 2:38 PM
For (2) the state Constitution is uh also a pain to amend but is probably our best chance at securing the tax environment we need to devolve control of mass transit to its service area
September 15, 2025 at 2:28 PM
This guy looks about it
September 13, 2025 at 3:08 PM
If you say "jif" I think this:
September 13, 2025 at 12:40 AM
This is the most important line in this article. IMO this is one of the greatest failures of the New Deal & Reaganite political orders--excessive focus on Federal capacity at the expense of state capacity

Trump's gleeful destruction of the former forces the pendulum to swing back to the latter
August 24, 2025 at 1:55 AM
Love this concluding graf btw
August 19, 2025 at 11:23 PM
Lots of blah blah blah, stuff most of us who've been fighting these battles awhile already know, but this poison pill definitely caught my eye

In other cities (ah-hem, Seattle) those users are used to undermine safe infra for non-motorists
August 19, 2025 at 8:58 AM