Linkage

I remember when Nat and Miguel announced the Hula project, and thought it was basically benign. There seems to be a demand for that sort of stuff, even though no productivity tool had ever made the slightest improvement to my productivity for some reason (ADHD? Moi?), so it wasn't scratching an itch I had, but if it led to more free software users, hooray. Then I read this. It's a classic; still as relevant as ever.

 Today Nat announced this new calendar server project called Hula, and I've got a funny story about that.

Nat was in town, and he stopped by to say hi and chat, and he said, "So we've got this big pile of code we're going to release, and we're going to build an open source groupware system! It's going to be awesome!"

And I said, "Jesus Mother of Fuck, what are you thinking! Do not strap the 'Groupware' albatross around your neck! That's what killed Netscape, are you insane?" He looked at me like I'd just kicked his puppy. 

[…]

Netscape 4 was a really crappy product. We had built this really nice entry-level mail reader in Netscape 2.0, and it was a smashing success. Our punishment for that success was that management saw this general-purpose mail reader and said, "since this mail reader is popular with normal people, we must now pimp it out to `The Enterprise', call it Groupware, and try to compete with Lotus Notes!" 

[…]

 "Groupware" is all about things like "workflow", which means, "the chairman of the committee has emailed me this checklist, and I'm done with item 3, so I want to check off item 3, so this document must be sent back to my supervisor to approve the fact that item 3 is changing from `unchecked' to `checked', and once he does that, it can be directed back to committee for review."

Nobody cares about that shit. Nobody you'd want to talk to, anyway. 

We mapped the extent to which researchers and advocates have been subject to intimidation tactics by tobacco, alcohol and ultra-processed food (UPF) companies and their associates. The tactics described include being descredited in public, legal threats, complaints, nefarious use of Freedom of Information legislation, surveillance, cyberattacks, bribery and even physical violence.

[…]

The scale of intimidation we have found is likely to be the tip of the iceberg. Many will be too scared to publicly reveal that they have been intimidated because of their work.

We found widespread intimidation across the three sectors, perpetrated by corporations themselves and their third parties. In the most serious forms of intimidation, the perpetrators remained unknown.

Really punchy 20m intro to the Robert Putnam / Ray Oldenburg thing from Mike Pasternock at Strong Towns.

People are lonely. Is it because we are addicted to our phones, or is that a symptom of larger design choices we made when building our places? We cover some of the general concepts related to social infrastructure an try to evaluate what to do next.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said the refusal or withdrawal of HRT for trans patients raised “ethical and clinical” concerns.

“Hormones should not be stopped for political reasons or in the absence of a recognised medical issue,” a spokesperson told TBIJ. “If GPs are withdrawing prescriptions despite recommendations, this could result in negative impacts on patients' mental and physical wellbeing.”

[…]

The issue appears to reflect a wider rollback of access to gender-affirming healthcare in the wake of April’s publication of the controversial Cass Review into health services for trans young people. This review claimed that the evidence base of using puberty blockers and gender-affirming hormones for young people was “weak”. Some of the same medicines are used in adult care.

The review did not recommend a ban on puberty blockers but resulted in one for young people experiencing gender dysphoria (they are still permitted for children experiencing early puberty). The ban was extended by the new Labour government in August. Adult gender services are now also under review.

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health said the refusal or withdrawal of HRT for trans patients raised “ethical and clinical” concerns.

“Hormones should not be stopped for political reasons or in the absence of a recognised medical issue,” a spokesperson told TBIJ. “If GPs are withdrawing prescriptions despite recommendations, this could result in negative impacts on patients' mental and physical wellbeing.”

Puberty blockers delay the onset of puberty, but don’t necessarily result in a measurable effect at the time they are taken. The main impact is seen when people are older. The physical effects of a puberty that does not match a person’s gender can have serious negative consequences for transgender adults.

In my role as a GP, I regularly hear from transgender adults (who have not had puberty blockers) struggling with distress related to bodily changes which occurred during puberty.

I have met people who don’t speak because their deep voice causes others to make incorrect assumptions about their gender. Some harm themselves or avoid leaving the house because of the distress caused by their breasts. Others seek costly surgical treatments.

This is when the benefits of maintaining equitable access to puberty blockers for those who need them become obvious. People are seeking hormones, surgery and mental health support for changes which could have been prevented by using puberty blockers when they were younger.

The ministry’s position statement recommends that puberty blockers are prescribed by health professionals who have expertise in this area, with input from interdisciplinary colleagues.

In my experience this describes how puberty blockers are currently being prescribed in New Zealand. Clinicians are already cautious in their prescribing. They work with multidisciplinary input to best support the young person and their family. They recognise the importance of mental health and family support for young people. 

In 1994, the ten largest builders had just 10% of the national market. By 2018, the top ten builders had a little less than a third. Partly this consolidation is due to a credit crunch. During the financial crisis from 2007-2012, 55% of residential developers disappeared. There were also post-crisis mergers, like Pulte Homes and Centex, Lennar and CalAtlantic, Tri Pointe and Weyerhauser, and so forth, but many of the acquisitions these days are smaller roll-ups, like D.R. Horton buying an Arkansas specialty builder Riggins Custom Homes, Gulf Coast builder Truland Homes, or lot developer Forestar Group, or Lennar acquiring developer WCI Communities. Analysts are projecting 2024 to be another strong year for M&A.

Of course, such numbers understate consolidation; national shares matter very little, since housing is local, and concentration is higher when you get to local levels. In Miami-Fort Lauderdale, for instance, Lennar has 47% of the market for new homes, in Los Angeles, D.R. Horton has about a third. As economist Luis Quintero noted in a paper, 60% of local markets are now “highly concentrated,” a new phenomenon. In 25 of the top 82 markets, one builder controls at least 25% of the market. That’s 60% of the housing markets in “Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and western Pennsylvania.”

[…]

So why all the consolidation? And more importantly, why hasn’t the number of builders bounced back? If margins are up, why aren’t there new entrants coming in to take profit and share? To answer this question I started by reading a bunch of investor documents from the big homebuilders. And I realized that to call these businesses “homebuilders” is misleading. It’s striking how little of their business has to do with, well, building. For instance, here’s D.R. Horton in 2023: “Substantially all of our land development and home construction work is performed by subcontractors.” Here’s Lennar in 2023: “We use independent subcontractors for most aspects of land development and home construction.” I suspect most of the other big guys would say something similar. These aren’t builders, they are financiers that borrow cheaper than real developers and use that cheap credit to speculate in land, hiring contractors to do the work. They are, in other words, middlemen.

Local homebuilding markets have become highly concentrated in the past decade. We document this increase in concentration and use IV regressions to show that it has led to lower production volume, fewer units in the production pipeline, and greater unit price volatility. These results are consistent with a theoretical model in which oligopolistic firms strategically set the timing, volume, and price of their new construction. Our estimates imply that market concentration has decreased the annual value of housing production nationwide by $106 billion. These findings provide further evidence that the secular decline in competitive intensity is altering macroeconomic dynamics .

In the US, housing policy distinctively subsidizes homeownership. Most notably in the form of the Mortgage Interest Tax Deduction, federal policy benefits owners much more than tenants. Climate policy is no different. In public or cooperative housing models, the government or cooperative serves as the landlord or property manager, and therefore has more direct influence over the fate of property conditions. In much of the private market, by contrast—which is where the vast majority of tenants find housing—the federal government sees its role as less direct. Tenants in many multifamily properties have no direct method of contracting for services; many do not know who owns the real estate. The IRA’s focus on incentives and credits for landlords maintains this property relationship.

The fact that about one in three housing units are occupied by tenants raises questions about the effects such climate tax incentives will have on owners of rental property. The Biden Administration has emphasized the importance of channeling these funds to “disadvantaged communities,” maintaining that about 40 percent of funds should go toward low-income households, 10 percent of which should go toward multi-family households. However, the facts of ownership leave open a stubborn question: will landlord spending on climate retrofits—a condition for receiving public funds—alter existing financial terms between tenants and landlords?

In this report we propose the creation of a national construction fund to help expand the stock of new multifamily housing, particularly during high interest rate environments. The multifamily housing sector finds itself trapped in a vicious cycle: rising rent and housing costs induce the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, thereby shrinking the supply of financing for housing, in turn contributing to higher housing prices. Financing bottlenecks cause otherwise economically viable units to sit unbuilt or delayed, contributing to our national housing shortage and affordability crisis. 

A national construction fund would provide enough lower-cost construction financing to allow multi-family developers to clear upfront equity investment hurdles and continue developing projects in higher interest rate environments. Thousands of permitted, ready-to-build units that are stuck in limbo would nally enter construction, ensuring that housing supply becomes available as the economy picks up steam and preventing housing costs from continuing to spiral upward.

This report highlights:

• the connection between the business cycle, housing supply, and housing costs;
• the financing gaps that developers face in high-rate environments; and
• considerations and options for policymakers in designing and implementing a national construction fund that can ll those gaps, including the proper instrumentalities to host the fund, eligible lenders, risk management, fund sizing, and further incentives to increase affordability.

The federal government has not made a large scale investment to address affordable housing shortages since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created public housing for civilians. Now, we need action beyond that scale. The country’s housing crisis is untenable, and it must end. We need a Homes Guarantee that will:

• Build 12 million social housing units and eradicate homelessness;
• Reinvest in existing public housing;
• Protect renters and bank tenants;
• Pay reparations for centuries of racist housing policies; and,
• End land/real estate speculation and de-commodify housing.

Fully realized, this proposal will guarantee homes for all. Rents will be set based on tenants’ needs and real costs to
local government, rather than speculative market prices. Land will be stewarded by and on behalf of everyday people
instead of financialized by developers and landlords. A Homes Guarantee will offer both reparative and proactive
approaches, including restorative justice to communities impacted by decades of discriminatory housing policy, as
well as investments that slash carbon emissions and support resiliency from ongoing climate breakdown.

Offering a plan to eradicate housing insecurity and homelessness in America is a gigantic undertaking. It is also a
moral and political responsibility. This briefing book is our detailed proposal for a Homes Guarantee