Tom Coale
tomcoale.bsky.social
Tom Coale
@tomcoale.bsky.social
I post about #housing, #MDHousing, #MDPolitics, #Orioles, #Ravens and random pop culture.
Reposted by Tom Coale
ND Gov. Kelly Armstrong at @yimbytown.bsky.social : on any policy change, 20% of people will be cranky & loud against, 80% are supportive but busy living their lives & don’t speak up. Ignore the 20%. Turn off your social media. Find a compelling emotional hook to engage the silent 80%.
September 15, 2025 at 2:01 PM
While the headline focuses on a particular element of testimony, @halliemiller.bsky.social does an excellent job throughout the piece addressing the subject of parking reform. #MDHousing

www.thebanner.com/community/ho...
Former Baltimore City councilman’s outburst pauses housing hearing
Proceedings at a Baltimore City Council hearing were briefly paused Thursday after a former councilman refused to cede the microphone.
www.thebanner.com
September 12, 2025 at 2:54 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
The highlighted quote is a good example of why trying to hash out disagreements in good faith with left-NIMBY orgs is exhausting and ultimately fruitless. The lead author on this report *knows* this isn't true, and he knows it because we had a whole exchange about this in the pages of Dissent!
August 28, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
this is fantastic news for Arlington, and hopefully reassuring to Montgomery County officials, who are considering a more modest version of the zoning reforms Arlington passed in 2023
Arlington's missing middle policy ending single-family-only zoning was effectively reinstated Tuesday by a Virginia panel of judges, who ruled that homeowners suing over that effort did not adequately take real estate developers to court, too.

www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/202...
Va. appeals court says Arlington can eliminate single-family-only zoning
The Northern Virginia county’s push for more “missing middle” housing had divided its residents and was paused in response to a lawsuit from some homeowners.
www.washingtonpost.com
June 25, 2025 at 4:09 PM
Critics focusing on Abundance instead of Stuck and Why Nothing Works allows them to step around the premise that:
1) things weren't always this way;
2) housing has been more affordable when we've built more of it; and
3) unfettered veto-based populism makes govt do bad things.
June 17, 2025 at 6:31 PM
We're really about to start playing peek-a-boo with hurricanes like the old timey days.
May 2, 2025 at 2:30 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
Reposted by Tom Coale
Baltimore County needs leadership with fresh ideas, real experience, and the drive to get things done. We are One County. Ready for that kind of change? Let’s build it together.

Join the campaign: nickforbaltimorecounty.com

#NickStewart2026 #StewartForBaltCo #OneCounty
April 28, 2025 at 11:20 AM
Community meetings are like direct democracy, but only if you're free at 5:30 pm on a Tuesday.
Oh that’s easy: stop requiring wildly unrepresentative “community meetings” as a condition of individual project approvals.
March 31, 2025 at 3:36 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
this is fantastic news! next step: the House floor. if you haven’t already, you can send your delegates a note asking them to support Housing for Jobs here ⬇️ ggwash.org/housingforjo...
March 28, 2025 at 6:13 PM
Great to see Housing for Jobs move out of the House Environment and Transportation committee earlier today! Thank you sub-committee chair Delegate
@robbynlewis46th.bsky.social and E&T chair Delegate @mkorman.bsky.social an for your work on this bill! #MDHousing
March 28, 2025 at 6:05 PM
I love any chance to talk housing policy with
@jemillerbalt.bsky.social. @govwesmoore.bsky.social
and the #Maryland legislature have taken big swings to address the #Housing Crisis this session and many of those efforts are well on their way to final passage.

open.spotify.com/episode/1q7Z...
Has Progress on Affordable Housing Stalled
Maryland Capital with Jayne Miller · Episode
open.spotify.com
March 27, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Hey...what?
March 19, 2025 at 6:05 PM
“Giving people a subsidy for a good whose supply is choked is like building a ladder to try to reach an elevator that is racing upward.”
- @ezrakleinbot.bsky.social & @dkthomp.bsky.social, #Abundance
March 19, 2025 at 12:04 PM
I never expected "we should build more of the things we need" to be a controversial take. #Abundance
March 18, 2025 at 1:20 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
JD Vance's brother says that building affordable housing is tantamount to American slavery.
J.D. Vance's brother is running for Mayor of Cincinnati on a platform of overturning the recent zoning reforms that aimed to build more housing near transit. Notably, while he is running as a Republican, he uses left-wing talking points when it comes to zoning and housing.
March 10, 2025 at 5:03 PM
"Taking pleasure in the suffering of others will get us nowhere...You will only root for the spread of Measles in the Trump +35 district until it reaches the Harris +10 district, and maybe one day reaches you in your bright blue state."

bad-faith-times.ghost.io/the-leopards...
The Leopards Are Getting Fat
It's fun to pretend elected leaders in charge of a nation of 350 million people can handpick who suffers and who does not.
bad-faith-times.ghost.io
March 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
@yappelbaum.bsky.social's new book Stuck answers some of these questions. The answer is normally racism wrapped in classism.
YIMBYism is wild because you start to ask questions like “why was single family zoning created?” and “are our regulations for building safety based on any actual safety data?” and soon realize that ~85% of the rules governing our cities are based on nothing but tradition and vibes.
We went through this with zoning, and now we're going through it with building code: trillion dollar industries depend on these things, yet a bunch of precocious bloggers can swoop in and expose these institutions as full of pseudoscience. Does nobody do their job? @aarmlovi.bsky.social
March 3, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Exciting new polling from @ggwash.org showing strong support for the tenets of @govwesmoore.bsky.social's Housing for Jobs Act.

60% of Marylanders believe allowing more homes will help create jobs, increase customers for local businesses and make homes more affordable.

ggwash.org/files/H4Jpol...
ggwash.org
March 3, 2025 at 4:50 PM
Reposted by Tom Coale
The personal opinions of planners and staffers are one of the most significant and under-appreciated aspects influencing if your city builds or not.
“Vancouver city council will consider a staff recommendation Wednesday to push back against new provincial rules allowing multi-family residential buildings under six-storeys to be built with single set of fire escape stairs.”

I keep saying staff are the real NIMBYs
vancouversun.com/news/vancouv...
Vancouver chief building official pushes back on single stairwells allowed by province
Last fall, B.C. revised the B.C. Building Code to allow developers to build residential buildings under six storeys to have one staircase
vancouversun.com
February 26, 2025 at 4:48 PM
In the most recent UMBC poll conducted by Maryland's top vibe-checker @mileahkromer.bsky.social, 63% of respondents identified the cost and availability of #housing as a "high priority". This outperformed taxes, economic growth, environment and transportation.

marylandmatters.org/wp-content/u...
marylandmatters.org
February 25, 2025 at 4:08 PM
I want my children to grow up in a world where, as adults, they can have coffee at 3 pm and go to sleep at 9 pm.
February 20, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Old and busted: Social Media Consultant
New hotness: AI Consultant
February 20, 2025 at 4:40 PM
I'm adding @yappelbaum.bsky.social's new book Stuck to the list of books I recommend for those seeking to understand the #housing crisis.

Rest of list (unranked):
@jerusalem.bsky.social On Housing
@shanedphillips.bsky.social The Affordable City
@conordougherty.bsky.social Golden Gates
February 19, 2025 at 11:44 PM
One day, hopefully soon, we will stop re-sharing the President's trolling social media posts that are intended to incite us.
February 19, 2025 at 9:22 PM