Housing advocate @WestsideForEv. Dad x2. I used to do stand-up and @RoastBattle. I still do, but I used to more.

Los Angeles, CA
Joined April 2009
Your regular reminder that every small town in America regularly built affordable, sustainable, beautiful housing in walkable neighborhoods over 100 years ago. We just spent the last 70 years making it illegal and the last 10 arguing whether it was impossible.
Replying to @PlanningAutumn
29 Second Street. c. 1875. Downtown, Troy.
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Good illustration of "privatizing public space"
Crazy that @nycparks owns all of these sites in lower-income neighborhoods like Harlem with NO open hours on a beautiful weekend day like today. If these community gardens functioned like normal public parks, so many more local residents could actually enjoy them.
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
The core goal of YIMBYism is to build enough of the things people need, especially housing. When architects display obvious contempt and hostility for the aesthetic preferences of ordinary people and deliberately design aggressively ugly buildings, it undermines this goal.
I visited Wurster Hall at UC Berkeley today. It was designed by, and currently houses, the architecture faculty. The UC Berkeley website notes that "Wurster is often voted Berkeley's ugliest building." I visited because I was curious about whether it would in person seem as unattractive as it does in photos. And, in short: it does. It's gaunt, austere, and filmed in grime. On an elysian campus, it stands out for its bleak hostility. It reminds me of the German submarine base in Bordeaux. The UC Berkeley page agrees that it was never designed to be attractive, quoting the curator of their design archives: “Wurster and his handpicked architects didn’t want anything romantic, or sentimental — they hated the idea of ‘making pretty buildings. They wanted a serious building.” I guess we have to concede success relative to their stated goals, but it does make one wonder what it all says about architecture as a discipline.
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
The story behind Measure TE: not the ULA reform advocates wanted, but what we got.
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Has anyone used AI to just generate a normal film? Like one that they wrote an actual script for and storyboarded rather than something with giant snakes eating trains and stuff?
This AI video is an absolute masterpiece 🔥 Hollywood is cooked rn 🤯 Seedance 2.5
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It is easier to make something look visually good if you don't care about the details and just want something that looks visually polished. If you have a specific vision for a movie and want it to look a specific way in each scene it's harder.
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LA is basically run by a "good old chuds" network. Incumbent officials who have run the city into the ground playing petty-tyrant machine politics are furious that Nithya might actually follow laws and professionalize operation of the city. politico.com/news/2026/10/20…
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
YIMBYs are all in on Nithya for mayor. The developer community is decidedly more mixed. We break it down in our latest episode.
Can Nithya win over developers? Housing advocate and developer Andrew Slocum joins the latest episode of "In Search of a City: The LA Housing Podcast" to discuss with hosts @JesseZwick @Leslie_Ridings @_jonnyshotit_ and Io Sunwoo! Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=10WzThia…
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
Rob McElhenney says the two-against-one rule on Always Sunny has saved them years of emotional arguments because production is too expensive to negotiate every single decision "early on we realized let’s just institute a rule of two against one. And it’s really really and I know it sounds silly and simple but it has been profound" "The assumption is do you trust me? Yes. Do I trust you? Yes. And the three of us trust each other and we trust our taste. So therefore if two of us feel strongly about something then the other one has to capitulate no matter what no questions asked" "They get a chance to plead their case and we all have to remain open-minded. But if the two of us still or two of them say nope this is the way we’re going you move on quickly" "And it actually diffuses so many problems so quickly because you don’t have time as you all know you work in production it’s so expensive to run these shows you just don’t have time to negotiate every single thing and you got to move fast and that has saved us I mean that has saved us hours I would actually say that that saved years of our lives emotionally"
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~Every country on earth has some mix of private businesses, public institutions, and laws, so the labels “capitalist” and “socialist” are kind of meaningless and largely just affinity markers.
Is L.A. mayoral candidate Nithya Raman a capitalist? "I'm a capitalist and I'm also a Democratic Socialist...we need to make sure capitalism works without harm to workers... to poor people." She says the DSA is a "big tent" but she disagrees with members who call to abolish police, prisons and the Senate. Interview via @InsidePolitics on @CNN
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Nithya seeks to emulate countries like European ones that have largely private sector economies but are perceived to have better public services and regulations (rightly or wrongly). Half the “socialist” memes in America are just “we want to be like every other country”
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LA cannot afford to elect an irresponsible leftist who wants to make everything free without regard for finances or practicality like…Karen Bass
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
this is insane
In 2005 San Francisco firefighter unions successfully pushed a proposition making it illegal to close or consolidate existing firehouses. It even prevents any apparatus from being changed. Despite some firehouses receiving < 3 calls a day. (not a typo) Since then working fires have fallen 36% (309 to 197) as medical calls increased by far more. More than a third fewer working fires. But each engine and tiller is a protected species (plus crew & exact role) and cannot ever be replaced with say, 3 ambulances and crews at ~same cost. Meanwhile you still need an ambulance for transport. Which is going to be a while because as noted in an audit they cannot “add additional ambulance shifts by re-assigning existing resources from fire”. But at least 5 guys in turnout gear can babysit with the $2.5M truck their medical kits are in.
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Clay Grubb is the rare Sun Belt-based apartment developer betting big on coastal cities like New York and Los Angeles and Oakland. But building in coastal cities is nothing like building in the Sun Belt, as Clay explains in this week's episode.
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
Can Nithya win over developers? Housing advocate and developer Andrew Slocum joins the latest episode of "In Search of a City: The LA Housing Podcast" to discuss with hosts @JesseZwick @Leslie_Ridings @_jonnyshotit_ and Io Sunwoo! Watch: youtube.com/watch?v=10WzThia…
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Honestly we need to re-legalize these
A Microsoft AI scientist chose to live in a tiny room in San Francisco’s Chinatown for less than $1,000 a month. @annakook gives us a rare look inside a single-room occupancy building, where residents have private rooms but share kitchens and bathrooms.
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
Connie Chan, the so called “progressive” candidate, is leading with…Republicans
USC poll | 10/16-10/19 LV US House 2026 | California’s 11th congressional district 🟦Scott Wiener 47% 🟦Connie Chan 41% Link to poll: sfstandard.com/2026/10/22/po…
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
Going over my ballot and I am again reminded that California's initiative and referendum system is garbage and should be thrown out entirely. Expecting voters to make informed decisions on complex matters of public policy is absurd and an abdication of responsibility by our reps.
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
A new @californiapost poll Nithya 46.7% Bass 38.8% Undecided 13.5% Bass 70.3% unfavorable 27.3% favorable Nithya 45.4% favorable 43.7% unfavorable
LA voters scorch state of the city, huge number seriously considering leaving California: shock poll trib.al/np3KM14
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
The soft power of mayors is underrated, historian and ex-mayor Bill Fulton explains on "In Search of a City: The LA Housing Podcast." Full episode: buff.ly/kJYNhl4
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Toby Muresianu 🇺🇦 retweeted
Churchill could have shortened WW2 by years if he had just “done a deal” with Hitler. George Washington could have done a deal to end the American Revolution. Zelenskyy is in good company.
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