Why YIMBY Righteousness Backfires, The Atlantic, Reihan Salam, July 15, 2023

Reihan Salam is a smart guy; he runs the conservative Manhattan Institute, which publishes the sometimes-urbanist City Journal. Folks on Twitter dragged this article—partly because he does this thing where he says YIMBYs are basically correct but can be annoying (which political movement or interest group isn’t?), partly because much of his advice is stuff most of us have already taken to heart, and partly because most of us know from experience that a change in tone is just not going to meaningfully shift NIMBY opposition, even if it might convince many regular people.

I just want to focus on this one bit:

One straightforward way to win over suburban homeowners is to advance housing reforms that help them build wealth, as Elmendorf has recommended. Legalizing accessory dwelling units, for example, enriches ordinary homeowners, who enjoy more public sympathy than large-scale developers, fairly or otherwise, and who can be mobilized against cost-increasing municipal-impact fees and discretionary review procedures. As an added bonus, this brand of reform allows YIMBYs to make a more optimistic appeal grounded in respect for property rights and personal freedom, a pitch that’s helped pass zoning-reform laws in Oregon, Utah, and Montana.

I think there’s some of what’s called “context collapse” here. A lot of the packaging for housing advocacy that conservatives dislike—the climate stuff (“cities are climate policy”) or the racial-justice stuff (“zoning is Jim Crow”) isn’t really meant for them. It’s meant to mock or convince left-NIMBYs who claim in the abstract to care about these things.

Similarly, Reihan’s preferred free-market/private property messaging and emphasis is exactly that—his preference, and that of most of his readers and followers. Fine; good. To a great extent, it’s mine too. But don’t confuse the messenger for the message.

This mega-map shows how MARC’s extension to Newark links us to a much broader region, Greater Greater Washington, David Edmondson, July 5, 2023

Sometimes I see these old maps, depicting the trolley or rail trips it would once have been possible to take. In theory, one could travel hundreds of miles across state lines, from one city to another—not just using regular passenger rail routes, but by using multiple systems at points where they intersected.

Given a new rail extension from Maryland’s MARC system into Delaware, Edmondson asks:

How far could you travel on commuter rail, anyway?…The answer? Linking MARC and SEPTA will make it possible to take a commuter rail trip from Spotsylvania, Virginia, to Springfield, Massachusetts.

That’s not an easy or really even intended trip, but it’s possible. That’s really cool. Read the whole thing, with a lot more maps and detail.

How Manga Was Translated for America, New York Times, Gabriel Gianordoli and Robert Ito, July 14, 2023

Onomatopoeia can often be hard to translate, particularly when it refers to sounds that exist as words in Japanese but not English. Like the sound of cream going into coffee or the sound of a guy fanning coals as he cooks eels he fished out of a sewer.

There’s even a Japanese sound effect for, of all things, silence: shiin. The type of silence indicated in the story — the hush of a forest, say, or an uncomfortable lapse in conversation — often dictates how shiin is translated.

A little more:

“What we’re trying to do is mimic a Japanese reader’s experience,” said Sara Linsley, a letterer who has worked on adapting manga. Here, Linsley layered a tiger’s snarl — “grrah” — over her own hand-rendered “vham.”

In this case, Linsley matched the playful lettering of the original text.

Sometimes the Japanese sound effects are such an integral and indispensable part of the artwork — and so beautiful — that American publishers choose to keep them as is.

What an interesting piece. The idea that you’re not just translating words, but trying to translate, to transpose, a feeling or experience into a culture without a full context for it. Neat stuff.

HGTV is making our homes boring and us sad, one study says, Washington Post, Rachel Kurzius, July 7, 2023

Homeowners are “torn between two ideas of what the home should be,” Grant says. The common wisdom is that, ideally, buying a home has two main benefits: You can build wealth, and you can modify your space to your unique tastes. Grant’s framework shows these two benefits in conflict with one another.

I remember my parents saying something like, “No, you can’t have blue carpet, nobody will ever buy a house with blue carpet.” Well, I could have had blue carpet for 25 years and counting. But now that we own a house, my wife and I keep any (mostly future) renovations mainstream and inoffensive ourselves.

I don’t really mind; I like simple, functional décor: stuff that’s easy to clean, stuff that will be safe for kids, not terribly expensive to fix or replace, etc. But the idea that there’s a sort of bland TV style that nobody really likes feels pretty true. It even predominates in big fancy $2 million houses!

Related Reading:

New and Old #87

New and Old #88

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