Daniel Herriges
@dpherriges
Urbanist advocate. Policy Director at the Parking Reform Network. Writer at Strong Towns. Co-author "Escaping the Housing Trap." St. Paul, Minnesota.
Yeah, the rail yard is the thing that kills me, as a Como resident. And there aren't really easy or inexpensive solutions. This is my Northwest quadrant of St. Paul bike wish list. (Bridge from Prior to the U transitway is there to shift the Overton window and make the other three look practical!)
Alternative hypothesis: the popularity of parking reform is a wave function that is indeterminate until measured.
Lest you think that isn't actually mixed use, let me highlight the aspirational living on offer at Aspire at City Place, from which you can walk to that Whole Foods, I guess, technically. Here's the view from the front of the complex.
I remember a presentation (in planning school a decade ago) from a couple Woodbury planners who were very proud of this Whole Foods-anchored shopping plaza out there as an example of thoughtful suburban mixed use and walkable site design. We were too polite to completely roast them to their faces.
Municipal-level population projections are insidious. Where and how we grow as a region is a political choice; they obscure that choice and tell us we simply must pay for extensive new infrastructure in the exurbs for all the people who are coming.
Apartments are family homes. Condos are family homes. Triplexes are family homes. This sanctification of the detached single-family house is so maddening—just a totally American form of brain worms that doesn't discriminate by political alignment.
Picked the kiddo up from preschool by bike on Thurs and Fri, for the first time since November. Didn't tell him I was going to. We stepped out the door of his school and he squealed "BIKE!!!" in excitement as soon as he saw. 4-year-olds agree: best way to travel.
2026 is starting out strong for parking reform as a couple prominent college towns repeal *all* of their parking mandates: let's hear it for Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and Missoula, Montana!
Authoritarian regimes lie constantly in big ways and small ways, as a show of power, not because they think the lie is convincing. The whole point is that it's blatant. Like this insane exchange between Tricia McLaughlin and a NYT reporter:
My favorite spot on the Mississippi on a gorgeous day this past October.
The Driftless Area is awesome, and little known outside the Upper Midwest. Lots of extremely charming towns around there and great hiking.
Oh, you mean this density gradient isn't just a natural outgrowth of urban land economics?
The glitching Weather Channel widget on my phone just gave me a jump scare. Forecast: End Times
There's a lot about this paper that's eyebrow-raising at best. I could do a longer thread but I'll just point out this paragraph where they bizarrely seem to treat average household sizes (dwelling units per population is just the inverse of that) as a direct measure of "supply constraints." Huh?
The @strongtowns.org suburban Growth Ponzi Scheme as it finds its expression in a run-of-the-mill set of local news headlines. (from last week's Sarasota News Leader)
Great summary from @knightengale.bsky.social of why parking reform matters. Always use storytelling when advocating on parking (or any land-use) policy. Make the harms *real* for people. This is a Dallas business that would have had to make its street crappier in order to open up. Now it doesn't.
My go-to example here is Santa Monica. Ocean, mountains, 75° much of the year, basically paradise on Earth. Tons of people would love to live there who can't. I highly doubt that any amount of upzoning in Santa Monica will lead to meaningfully affordable rents in Santa Monica.