The Curious Engineer

All blogs / Society / politics / economy

The Discourse Lounge

darrellowens.substack.com

I analyze politics, housing affordability, transportation, culture and urban living. Mostly focused in the Bay Area but not exclusively. Click to read The Discourse Lounge, by Darrell Owens, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.

Society / politics / economy

’21’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
139 from 24 Aug 2021 to 12 Oct 2026
Posting
monthly (15 in the last year)
Kind
personal blog
Feed
https://darrellowens.substack.com/feed

2026 11

  1. Voting Against The Bay Area Transit Measure Is a Fatal Mistake
  2. Reflection on Berkeley’s Bike Lane Drama
  3. Podcast: A Debate on Hopkins Bike Lanes!
  4. The Final Battle of Hopkins Bike Lanes
  5. The Urbanist Case Against Flock Cameras
  6. Oakland Doesn't Need To Copy San Francisco
  7. President Trump Just Hates Black People
  8. Trump's War on Urban America
  9. Berkeley's Last Zoning Battle
  10. Data Reveals Which Berkeley Commercial Areas Are In Decline
  11. Legalize Cafes Everywhere!

2025 22

  1. How To Save The Movie Theater
  2. The American Beauty of the East Bay
  3. The Fire Department vs. Traffic Safety Advocates
  4. The Challenge of Commercial Upzoning
  5. Darrell Owens on East Bay Yesterday Podcast
  6. Your Moral Duty to Vote in California
  7. California Passes Mass Transit Upzoning
  8. Why New Apartments Look Ugly
  9. California Housing Is Killing Democracy
  10. Bay Area Nightlife Sucks. Here's How To Fix It
  11. How Environmentalism Works in California
  12. Transit Passes Are Better But Free Fares Are Good Too.
  13. Big Housing Vote For Berkeley on Thursday!
  14. Will Selling Public Land End the Housing Crisis?
  15. What I Got Wrong On Defunding Police
  16. Big Day for California Housing On Tuesday
  17. How To Beat Male Radicalization
  18. The Abundance Bonanza
  19. Homelessness Is Not a "Blue City" Problem
  20. Is Single-Family Zoning Pro-Family?
  21. Demand More BART and Buses in Oakland!
  22. Why Transit In Oakland Sucks

2024 32

  1. Why American Cities (Actually) Suck
  2. Berkeley's Evolution On Housing
  3. Analyzing The Recall Of Pamela Price
  4. The Death of Twitter and Generalized Identity
  5. Take A Class To Learn Feminism
  6. Why Harris Lost Uninformed Voters
  7. Why We Keep Voting On Rent Control
  8. Correction on Measure FF
  9. Berkeley’s Culture War : EE vs. FF
  10. Why Some Black & Brown Men Like Nazi Crap
  11. Liberals Are Helping Red States
  12. Good Preservation vs. Bad Preservation
  13. Slight Correction On 'US Nightlife Sucks' Article
  14. Why U.S. Nightlife Sucks
  15. Why Kamala Is Talking About Housing
  16. Why Kamala Is Talking About Housing
  17. Fremont Turned Me Into A Suburbanite
  18. Correction on Berkeley Zoning Article.
  19. The Big Zoning Battle of Berkeley
  20. Why YIMBYs Should Support BAHFA
  21. Many More Homeless Sweeps Are Coming
  22. America’s Biggest Death Cult
  23. Berkeley's District 4 Election
  24. How Urban Renewal Ruined Everything
  25. Court Upholds Exclusionary Zoning in California
  26. Businesses Are Getting People Killed
  27. People Don't Understand Affordability Requirements
  28. It Shouldn't Have Been This Hard
  29. Is The Rent Killing Sex?
  30. Berkeley's Upzoning Would Be Among Nation's Largest
  31. From the Bib to the Bip
  32. The Woes of Oakland: Homelessness

2023 30

  1. Greyhound is the Future
  2. The Easiest Way To Become Poor
  3. Why I Used To Be a NIMBY
  4. Safety In Numbers: My Trip to NYC
  5. YIMBYs & Labor Revolutionize California
  6. How Boys Are Raised To Kill
  7. Becoming a Driver at 26 Years Old
  8. Berkeley Rents Fall Amid Construction Boom
  9. Recalling the DA Won't Do Anything
  10. The Slow Death of AC Transit
  11. What Affordable Housing Actually Means
  12. 9 tips on Community College
  13. The Distraction & Distortion of Affirmative Action
  14. California Strip Malls To be Upzoned Saturday
  15. Why Bay Area Transit Sucks: BART Funding
  16. The Update
  17. The Bystander Effect
  18. Unhoused and Unwell on Transit
  19. The Union Debate Over Housing in California
  20. No, Welfare Does Not Harm Black Families
  21. Vacant Housing Lowest In Census History
  22. In Defense of Shattuck: Housing in downtown Berkeley
  23. Half of Black Students Can Barely Read
  24. Zoning Holiday Takes Off in Silicon Valley
  25. 95% of Bay Area Cities Lost Zoning Authority
  26. Bay Area Cities To Lose ALL Housing Zoning Powers in 2 Days
  27. Guest Article: The Incentive Problem At The Heart Of The American Justice System
  28. Segregation Or Integration
  29. Debunking The Redpill: Part 2
  30. Debunking The Redpill: Part 1

2022 32

  1. UC Court Case: Homelessness is Pollution
  2. 300,000 people left California
  3. An Urbanist Goes to New Orleans
  4. The Allure of San Fran-Sicko
  5. San Francisco Election Round-Up
  6. The Ghost Fountains of North Berkeley
  7. Election Round-Up: Oakland, Berkeley & the County
  8. Kanye's Masculinity to Right Wing Pipeline
  9. My Berkeley Voter Guide
  10. The Million Dollar Affordable Housing
  11. I'm Not Going To Wait Anymore
  12. Traumatized by Santa Cruz's Housing Crisis
  13. Santa Cruz is A Housing Nightmare
  14. What Economists Get Wrong About Rent Control
  15. Census Reveals Vacant Housing Mysteries
  16. Response to "Beyond YIMBY-NIMBY Binary" Article(s)
  17. Rent Control's Effects on Housing Supply: Saint Paul
  18. YIMBYs Triumph In California
  19. Black and Asian Hate in San Francisco
  20. The Politics of People's Park
  21. Crime and Harassment on Public Transit
  22. YIMBY's Online Culture
  23. Who's Who: The Dictionary of '-In My Backyard'
  24. Boudin Gets Recalled
  25. The Boy and the Internet
  26. Exclusionary Zoning, But in Poor Neighborhoods
  27. 10 Reasons We Need California Public Housing
  28. Rally To Ban Cars Off Telegraph!
  29. The Malthusian Enrollment Cap
  30. Vacancy Tax Is Back
  31. The Meter Maids, Bikes & Cars of L.A.
  32. The History of Gentrification in Berkeley: Part II

2021 12

  1. How Nonprofits Misapply Value Capture To Parking
  2. The Bay Area Crime Wave
  3. Don't "Ban Cars", Just Ban Cars
  4. Free Fares Vs. More Service
  5. Forgiveness
  6. The History of Gentrification in Berkeley: Part I
  7. Eliminate Cars and Traffic Cops or Keep Cars and Traffic Cops but not both
  8. When it comes to safety: screw the process
  9. The Look of Gentrification
  10. Where Did All the Black People in Oakland Go?
  11. Vacant Nuance in the Vacant Housing Debate
  12. I do the thinking about the "Housing Wars" in California