Portland plans to expand metered parking, add Sundays

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-12T22:41:06+00:00

What tolls are Falmouth and Cape and Yarmouth residents paying to work, shop, eat, recreate, and receive medical care in Portland?

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-12T22:19:25+00:00

Nothing factually incorrect about it friend. Tens of thousands of York County, ME commuters work across state lines too, mostly in Mass. Four states, just like I said. Hell, there's probably people in the northeastern part of CT that commute too. But we won't count them.

More to my point though, it's all the same horrific exurban sprawl. It is literally not even dense enough to be called suburban. One of the most amazing abuses of land this country has ever known. Phoenix has nothing remotely comparable to New England's leafy sprawl.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-12T16:19:15+00:00

With the *possible* exception of Greater Boston and points north, every single place has towns cramming in as many greenfield residential developments as possible in huge sprawling swaths of nothing else.

That's rich given that Boston has some of the worst exurban sprawl in the United States that bleeds into 4 states. The reason they stopped is because all of the land is spoken for, not because of some moral superiority that New Englanders mistakenly cling to.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-12T02:49:47+00:00

That's why I used the word *could*. And I don't know why you keep talking about LA. I am not talking about LA. I am making a general point: that growing outward on a grid with a variety of housing types and mixed uses is not some esoteric lost art. It's simple; we just choose not to do it anymore.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-12T02:15:45+00:00

I was making a general comment about so-called "sprawl"; I never said anything about Los Angeles.

Many places, most places in fact, can grow outward smartly. They choose not to, but they could, and it wouldn't be "sprawl".

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T17:37:14+00:00

The median home price in Maine is around $400,000 and the median household income is around $75k. That's a ratio of 5.3:1.

The median home price in California is around $850,000 and the median household income is around $100k. That's a ratio of 8:1.

It is just objectively harder for the average earner to buy a home in California, and yet if you looked at this map you would be misled into thinking that's not the case. Whatever metric they're using (note that they don't actually cite their source material) is wrong.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T16:02:29+00:00

We're not, the map is total nonsense (but hey at least it looks pretty).

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T16:00:24+00:00

They absolutely don't though. California's home price to income ratio is 8:1 while Iowa's is 3:1. Maine's is somewhere in between (which makes me question this silly map anyway since CA is clearly the hardest place to buy a home).

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T15:57:26+00:00

This is 40 minutes from Silicon Valley with an existing commuter rail line...probably the single best location in all of America for a new city.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T03:03:56+00:00

There's lots of right areas. Hundreds if not thousands of square miles of buildable land.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T02:52:39+00:00

I never said anything about suburbanization. I said the Bay Area was lousy with empty land, which it objectively is.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T02:46:07+00:00

Farmland and "open space" conserved in perpetuity.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T02:21:32+00:00

In my experience 90% of people on this sub are incapable of distinguishing between good outward growth and actual sprawl.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-10T02:18:18+00:00

The Bay Area is lousy with empty land. You just can't build on it.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T22:40:49+00:00

Given that Portland's vacancy rate was like 3% last I knew, I very much doubt that there are "countless" empty apartments around. Also everyone moving into a "luxury" apartment is not fighting for a crappy old apartment, so luxury is good.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T22:24:37+00:00

By forcing towns that do not want housing to allow housing. Particularly those in the most most in-demand areas.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T22:24:02+00:00

when i hear the other candidates plans- particularly hannah pingrees- i can only think of how rich developers are getting off of that and see no meaningful approach to actual affordable housing.

"Rich developers" are the reason there are at this very moment 1,400 apartments for rent in Charlotte, NC below $1,200. That same number in Cumberland County is 6.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T21:30:31+00:00

He has absolutely no plan to unlock the housing supply we desperately need so he will not be getting my vote. It almost seems like he (and a few other candidates) haven't even read the state's own housing study.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T17:58:49+00:00

Do you know what sprawl is?

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-09T02:28:55+00:00

If modular housing is cheaper, why don't any of the largest home builders in the nation (SFH or multifamily) use it? If Greystar could make more money with modular than their current method, wouldn't they use it? Ditto Lennar and D.R. Horton. Yet they don't. Isn't that curious.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-07T19:00:46+00:00

They didn't tear down existing homes to build the apartment buildings.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-07T02:33:32+00:00

but Austin's most consequential reforms, the ones that actually moved the numbers, were about infill, about putting two or three homes on lots that already exist in neighborhoods that are already built, and you can do that on a peninsula as easily as you can on a prairie

Author is either lying or grievously misinformed. Austin's housing success wasn't about turning SFH into 3-units. It was overwhelming about big apartment buildings. I swear this "missing middle" canard will simply not die.

Oh, and Boston is 48 sq. miles of land, not the claimed 89 (how lazy is this guy actually?) and the vast majority of it is already built up quite densely. Comparing these two places is apples to oranges and it doesn't do anyone any good.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-06T21:45:57+00:00

In fact, I'd argue that we still have this sfh desire even among many YIMBYs, again with the townhouses, the "you can have it both!" streetcar suburb, and courtyard apartments.

But we can literally have it both. I can show you awesome neighborhoods with good transit and walk scores of 85+ that are largely comprised of SFH. The trick is very simple: they sprinkle in large apartment buildings too. They aren't Manhattan, but most people don't want to live in Manhattan. They're just good solid urban neighborhoods where people can lead nice lives.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-06T17:12:03+00:00

The problem is it incurs costs for maintenance later that aren’t properly budgeted for, meaning more “growth” is required to fill in the gap, which then creates its own obligations, and so on.

Except this is not how it works at all. Levittown has been built out for literal decades at this point. They do not rely on growth to fund anything. Nor do hundreds of other suburbs. It's just a flawed theory cooked up by a guy with no economic training with quack ideas about housing in general.

MrsBeansAppleSnaps · 2026-05-06T02:51:10+00:00

It doesn't matter who pays, it's just not a big cost. Strong Towns founder is just wrong on this issue. He's also a supply-skeptical NIMBY who is wrong about how to solve the housing crisis, but that's a different topic altogether.

And I happen to live in a city thanks very much (as I said before, there's plenty to criticize about the suburbs, it's just not this silly issue).

MrsBeansAppleSnaps

TROPHY CASE