Univ of Alabama also aggressively courts smart kids from the rest of the country. If you get a qualifying score on your PSAT to get National Merit Finalist ... you get a full scholarship to Alabama 5 Years of Tuition + Room + Board + $$

Not only *should* more developers do this ... but it's actually good for young families if they do One of the primary problems among the lack of "starter homes" is that they are currently occupied by older childless couples, particularly in places where families want to live (suburbs, good school districts etc) By building housing designed for seniors, that is so nice they are willing to move out of their homes, are are "freeing up" product for families to move in

Increasing the % that a student doesn’t graduate and is left holding the bag with non-dischargeable debt … is among the worst things you can do to them. It destroys their life Schools should absolutely bear the financial risk/downside of admitting students who don’t graduate

I understand the reasoning behind closing schools. It definitely "makes sense" ... in the short term to help address budget shortfalls. The problem is that in the LONG RUN it's very very difficult to add schools and playgrounds back. To buy real estate, to build new schools is much more costly. So, realistically but tragically, closing schools should be considered to be permanently reducing the total number of school children in a City.

And here’s the *strongest* case for Flock In November 2020, we lived in downtown Philly in Rittenhouse Square. After dinner, I took all 3 kids (and our dog) to the Christmas Village at City Hall. To give my wife a break, I took all of them by myself. As we reached the (former) Santander Bank, I saw a car drive up and stop about 20 yards in front of us. The driver got out, walked over to a young boy/man sitting on a bike and shot him in the face. The boy fell over by some potted plants, and then the man leaned over him and continued to shoot him. Point blank. The shooter then got back in his car and drove away, towards us. My kids, thank God, had no clue what happened other than very loud bangs and yelling. I told my son, who was 6, to run home as fast as he could. I had my 4 and 2 year in the double stroller and I pushed it as fast as I could. Running awkwardly with the leash on my wrist. As I ran down the street back, the shooters car went past us and then turned 10 feet in front of us down a side street, called Ranstead. I pulled out my phone and tried to get a photo of the car. Instead I just got a blurry picture of my son running for his life with car lights in the background The boy who was killed, across from City Hall mind you, was 20 years old. He had recently testified against some criminals on another murder he had witnessed. To this day, his murder is unsolved. Had Flock been monitoring license plates, it seems very reasonable that instead of this grainy useless picture, the police would have had much better chance of catching them.

Family friendly walkability is very different! In particular, kids being able to take themselves to school means you don’t have to be ON TIME at a specific place at a specific time 10 times per week. In the middle of the day 100x better than a coffee shop

On August 27, ICE arrested Milo Yiannopoulos, an illegal alien from the United Kingdom, at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport (MSY) in Kenner, Louisiana. Yiannopoulos legally entered the country on May 14, 2019, through New York City, New York. He chose to overstay his welcome in violation of our nation’s laws.   Yiannopoulos was issued a final order of removal by an Immigration Judge on July 22, after failing to show up for his immigration hearing. He will remain in ICE custody pending removal.    Being in detention is a choice. We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App. The United States is offering illegal aliens $3,000 and a free flight to self-deport now. We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream. If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.

AI can’t solve wicked problems A tame problem is clearly defined with a knowable solution; a wicked problem changes with context, involves competing constraints, and has no single objectively correct answer. Infill architecture is a wicked problem. And when Jeff Bezos comes along and says permits should be instantaneous, there is a clear failure to differentiate between tame and wicked problems. So I’m not too worried about being replaced by AI as long as people are involved in making decisions. Because people make a mess. AI doesn’t know what happens when a 70-year-old sewer lateral, a new state housing law, a neighborhood design guideline, and an angry planner who’s wife yelled at her this morning all collide on a 3,200-square-foot lot. It’s computation not judgment. And as long as cities are made by people, infill development will require both.

You can't *convince* someone into having kids, whether the message is positive or negative "You will be much happier when you have kids!" "You'll be miserable in 20 years if you don't!" That doesn't work ... especially if their peers aren't having kids. People are mimetic.

Fundamentally what families want in housing: Bedrooms Most of all, just one extra bedroom. You don't need an extra walk-in closet ... and while you might like it, you probably don't need an extra bathroom. You just want one extra bedroom.

It's also the fastest way to add a lot of, relatively, inexpensive housing units very quickly The homes are already there. They can be rehabbed and repaired. But we need better public safety. It requires a aggressive resolution to crime in currently undesirable neighborhoods.

Exactly. The housing crisis is that we don't have enough homes ... **in the desirable places people most want to live** Whether that's a superstar downtown or a suburb with good public schools. There are only 3 solutions: 1) Allow more houses to be built in the places where people want to live 2) Lower construction costs (especially in places where demand is high) 3) Create more places that are desirable (jobs, better schools more broadly etc

The two issues that we should dramatically rethink in terms of public elementary education: 1. Chromebooks for every student 2. Larger schools Both of these policies are largely driven by desires for "efficiency" ... but they come with major drawbacks. The chromebooks for 1st graders has already been beaten to death, and the large schools necessitate the endless long SUV pickup lines