I love cities.

They’re not only humanity’s greatest invention—they’re engines of wealth, culture, and politics, places where the mishmash of humanity somehow brings out the best in us. We’re living through an era of profound social, economic, and technological change, one that poses urgent questions about the future of cities, and the future of us. I started City of Yes to explore how urban life is evolving in this new world—partly to understand it, and partly to save it.

Who am I?

I’m a writer (of course), a housing advocate, and a zoning commissioner in Austin, Texas. I’ve lived in cities around the world—Boston, New York, San Francisco, London, Madrid, Tokyo—but I hail from small-town Connecticut. In my early career, I worked as a research analyst on Wall Street before pivoting to Montessori education, where I spent a decade building and managing schools. Through that work, I saw up close the difficulty of building anything in cities—and how the high cost of housing threatens the very people who make our cities function: educators, families, workers of all stripes.

My interests span urban policy, politics, architecture, history, and culture: if it happens in a city, I probably want to write about it. As a practitioner and writer, I’m drawn to the space where theory meets practice—where lofty ideals confront the reality of zoning maps, and where we try, time and again, to build a city that works for everyone.

I publish City of Yes weekly, with occasional bonus posts for paid subscribers. This work is a labor of love, made possible by the generous support of readers who believe in what I’m building here—if you like it, too, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Thank you for reading along.

Welcome to the City of Yes.