D. Dowd Muska
Blog
Will voters continue to subsidize transit’s death spiral in 2026?
Will voters continue to subsidize transit’s death spiral in 2026? By D. Dowd Muska | October 23, 2026 On Election Day, transit enthusiasts will direct their attention to greater San Francisco. There, five counties will decide whether to hike their sales taxes to bail out rail, bus and ferry services ...
Blog
Why cities should convert public property to private housing
In a recent piece for Works in Progress, “a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world,” Zigmund Forrest and Maxwell Tabarrok noted that since “the completion of Battery Park City in 1976, there has not been a single major urban land reclamation project in the United States.” ...
Blog
Sounds like a plan: Cities embrace pre-approved housing designs
Sounds like a plan: Cities embrace pre-approved housing designs By D. Dowd Muska | September 4, 2026 It’s so obvious, even Los Angeles gets it. In response to the savage firestorms that struck California’s largest metro region in January 2025, both the city and county of Los Angeles enacted a ...
Blog
A not so Brightline: California’s other bullet train boondoggle
It’s happening. This time, it’s really happening. That’s what dignitaries at the pseudo-event told themselves on April 22, 2024 — the day Brightline West “officially broke ground on the nation’s first true high-speed rail system.” Bureaucrats, politicians, and civic leaders predicted nothing but sunshine for the long-sought HSR route linking ...
Blog
Useful data, but misguided advice: Harvard on housing
Useful data, but misguided advice: Harvard on housing by D. Dowd Muska | July 31, 2026 Advocates of deregulation-oriented solutions to the affordable-housing crisis continue to notch wins in liberal and conservative states, including California’s “by right” housing reforms and a recently passed package of permitting reforms known as the ...
Blog
Buying local: The new push to legalize neighborhood businesses
Buying local: The new push to legalize neighborhood businesses by D. Dowd Muska | July 17, 2026 Your mission, NIMBYs, should you choose to accept it: Stop accessory commercial units, or ACUs. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) have won bipartisan, pan-ideological support in blue and red states. But advocacy for ACUs — ...
Blog
The Trump administration tries to kill aid to dependent cities
You know about the bridge to nowhere. The electric tugboat? Probably not. In 2020, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District received a unique grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Awarded under the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), the $2,017,660 subsidy paid for the eWolf, “America’s first all-electric ...
Blog
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Blog
Not seeing much progress: The failure of cities’ Vision Zero
But as is often the case with feel-good, word-salad progressivism, Vision Zero’s results fall somewhere between mixed and disappointing. San Diego, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver, Charlotte, Philadelphia — the list of underperformers isn’t short. One elected official in Seattle grew so frustrated, he requested an investigation. In April, Rob Saka ...
Blog
Beyond trailer parks: Modular housing can boost affordability
The nation enjoys a “very high rate of economic activity,” yet “housing construction hasn’t been high.” Inflation’s a major factor — “land is several times more expensive than it’s been in the past,” and costs for “materials have gone way up.” Paradoxically, “we’ve been losing ground in meeting housing needs ...
Will voters continue to subsidize transit’s death spiral in 2026?
Will voters continue to subsidize transit’s death spiral in 2026? By D. Dowd Muska | October 23, 2026 On Election Day, transit enthusiasts will direct their attention to greater San Francisco. There, five counties will decide whether to hike their sales taxes to bail out rail, bus and ferry services ...
Why cities should convert public property to private housing
In a recent piece for Works in Progress, “a magazine of new and underrated ideas to improve the world,” Zigmund Forrest and Maxwell Tabarrok noted that since “the completion of Battery Park City in 1976, there has not been a single major urban land reclamation project in the United States.” ...
Sounds like a plan: Cities embrace pre-approved housing designs
Sounds like a plan: Cities embrace pre-approved housing designs By D. Dowd Muska | September 4, 2026 It’s so obvious, even Los Angeles gets it. In response to the savage firestorms that struck California’s largest metro region in January 2025, both the city and county of Los Angeles enacted a ...
A not so Brightline: California’s other bullet train boondoggle
It’s happening. This time, it’s really happening. That’s what dignitaries at the pseudo-event told themselves on April 22, 2024 — the day Brightline West “officially broke ground on the nation’s first true high-speed rail system.” Bureaucrats, politicians, and civic leaders predicted nothing but sunshine for the long-sought HSR route linking ...
Useful data, but misguided advice: Harvard on housing
Useful data, but misguided advice: Harvard on housing by D. Dowd Muska | July 31, 2026 Advocates of deregulation-oriented solutions to the affordable-housing crisis continue to notch wins in liberal and conservative states, including California’s “by right” housing reforms and a recently passed package of permitting reforms known as the ...
Buying local: The new push to legalize neighborhood businesses
Buying local: The new push to legalize neighborhood businesses by D. Dowd Muska | July 17, 2026 Your mission, NIMBYs, should you choose to accept it: Stop accessory commercial units, or ACUs. Accessory dwelling units (ADUs) have won bipartisan, pan-ideological support in blue and red states. But advocacy for ACUs — ...
The Trump administration tries to kill aid to dependent cities
You know about the bridge to nowhere. The electric tugboat? Probably not. In 2020, the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District received a unique grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Awarded under the Diesel Emissions Reduction Act (DERA), the $2,017,660 subsidy paid for the eWolf, “America’s first all-electric ...
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe
SMART bomb: Wine country’s commuter-rail catastrophe By D. Dowd Muska | June 5, 2026 BOOK REVIEW: “The Great Train Heist: The California SMART Taxpayer Rip-off” They tried in 1990. It didn’t work. They tried in 1998. Nothing doing. They tried in 2000. Voters declined. They tried in 2006. No dice. ...
Not seeing much progress: The failure of cities’ Vision Zero
But as is often the case with feel-good, word-salad progressivism, Vision Zero’s results fall somewhere between mixed and disappointing. San Diego, Portland, Las Vegas, Denver, Charlotte, Philadelphia — the list of underperformers isn’t short. One elected official in Seattle grew so frustrated, he requested an investigation. In April, Rob Saka ...
Beyond trailer parks: Modular housing can boost affordability
The nation enjoys a “very high rate of economic activity,” yet “housing construction hasn’t been high.” Inflation’s a major factor — “land is several times more expensive than it’s been in the past,” and costs for “materials have gone way up.” Paradoxically, “we’ve been losing ground in meeting housing needs ...