Optimistic Costa Mesan for walkable neighborhoods, human-scaled development, and people-oriented city planning.
Costa Mesa, CA
Joined January 2017
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San Jose, CA and Hamburg, Germany at the same scale.
Which of the two urban environments do you think most people would prefer to live in?
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
We built a country that looks like this over the last 70 years to force people to buy a product that’s bankrupting them.
BREAKING: America’s $1.7 trillion auto loan market is headed for a crash, per Reuters.
Auto loans are now one of the biggest sources of household debt, bigger than credit cards.
And the strain is showing: 1 in 5 Americans is behind on at least one loan, the highest since 2010, and the average car on the road is now nearly 13 years old, a record.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
As I said before, I welcome autonomous vehicles, but if they're privately owned, single-occupant vehicles rather than shared ones, they won't "solve" traffic in any way, shape, or form.
If this was the U.S. the winning entry would be 100 townhomes with a private garage on each ground floor, organized around a network of driveways and visitor parking.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
Here is a simulation of how courtyard urbanism code could steer a low-density city block to a dense, green, family-friendly courtyard block over 50 years. Assuming a modest annual parcel turnover rate of 1% with incentives for merging adjacent 25' lots into 50' lots.
Baseline of 81 homes to ~221 homes (and model assume 20% large family units).
This is modeled on a SF block, but this is basically the same as any US grid city.
This is, by the way, how a lot of courtyard block neighborhoods in Europe were developed -- incrementally and over time, as larger apartment buildings replaced smaller single-family homes.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
A street must be a place you can linger, otherwise it's just an outdoor hallway
🤖 Made with AI
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
We’ve been channeling a bit of retro futurism with these #singlestair prototypes.
There was a lot of great urbanism at the start of the 1900s (before cars took over) and a lot of that same approach can work well with modern passive house design & low embodied carbon materials.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
Just outbid a young couple expecting their first child on a lovely 3 bed 2 bath house
Can’t wait to get a tenant in rental #16
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
Modern safety culture is a funny thing. The response to crashes is meh, which is probably why the consequences for people who cause fatal crashes are meh.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
There are many costs of sprawl, and losing ability to sustain a local parish or school community is a terrible one we pay
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
"Irvine, California should be studied as a model for master planning the city"
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
Half of America thinks Walkable Neighborhoods are Communist
The Other Half thinks Pretty Buildings are Fascist
Both Halves plan on spending $5000 + Their Entire PTO to visit a place like this next summer.
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
new American superblock.
One parking garage per block shared by residents who want to pay for parking.
Interior streets are pedestrianized
Courtyards provide protected yard space in the middle of dense, amenity-rich neighborhoods
Costa Mesa Jaywalker retweeted
Seems kind of obvious that the best possible form of urban living is small streets and 4-5 story dwellings , with lots of street calming and vegetation.
Perfect density but still calm . Incredible walkability but also safe for kids. Mixed use zoning obviously
Somehow we fell in love with towers and bungalows and parking and pedestrianization , huge parks and wide boulevards and the extremes
