David Cole Trolls "Matty" Yglesias of one billion Americans infamy

By A Colleague
Tue, Jul 19, 2022 7:59 p.m.

David Cole trolls "Matty" Yglesias of one billion Americans infamy

Excerpt:

Former Vox editor/cofounder Matt Yglesias has a fetish: He loves population density. Crowds, people piled upon people in tenements. His book, One Billion Americans, is basically "Throw open the border, add 700,000,000 newcomers, and live like ants."

The only green Matty likes is Soylent. "I am not personally a nature lover or an outdoorsy person," he proudly proclaims. He advocates replacing trees with concrete towers, because "tall buildings = more shade," which would "make everyone happier" during "long hot summers." This is, of course, idiocy; tall buildings make neighborhoods hotter by absorbing and reflecting heat onto surrounding areas.

This is the "heat island" effect, and it's well-documented. But what's science to a fetishist?

Chuck the Chalkboard

David Cole 

https://www.takimag.com/article/chuck-the-chalkboard/

A lesson from my casting director years: An actor's instincts are more important than talent when it comes to landing a part. At an audition, you have to be able to read the room. If the room is loose and jokey, joke along. If you sit there like a cadaver, you won't get a callback.

Conversely, if the room is "heavy"—cold, businesslike, terse—respond in kind.

With actors, the ability to read a room isn't necessarily about IQ. It's instinct, like a dog. Some of the dumbest actors I know have the best instincts; some of the smartest are too busy overthinking the room to "feel" it.

Instinct matters at an audition. But it matters even more in politics, where the "room" is the electorate.

Former vox editor/cofounder Matt Yglesias has a fetish: He loves population density. Crowds, people piled upon people in tenements. His book, One Billion Americans, is basically "Throw open the border, add 700,000,000 newcomers, and live like ants."

The only green Matty likes is Soylent. "I am not personally a nature lover or an outdoorsy person," he proudly proclaims. He advocates replacing trees with concrete towers, because "tall buildings = more shade," which would "make everyone happier" during "long hot summers." This is, of course, idiocy; tall buildings make neighborhoods hotter by absorbing and reflecting heat onto surrounding areas.

This is the "heat island" effect, and it's well-documented. But what's science to a fetishist?

Matty's dream of a nation of densely packed favelas with no greenery is shared by the Biden administration, which is pushing to end single-family residence zoning nationwide. Front lawns, backyards, parks…these things are racist. Zoning laws that prohibit the construction of Section 8 slums and barrios are what keep neighborhoods safe from leftist ideologues and greedy developers who want to cram inner-city trash and penniless immigrant detritus into low-crime, high-quality-of-life neighborhoods.

So the zoning laws gotta go.

California's No. 1 on the target list. L.A.'s always been a city of houses. As I detailed in a previous piece, one of the reasons blacks came west in the early 20th century was because unlike in New York or Chicago, a black person could easily buy a house here. At my majority-black public schools in the early '80s, most of my friends lived in houses. That so many black Angelenos lived in houses ended up contributing to their extirpation over the past two decades. There were no towering projects to dynamite, just houses to change hands.

Houses aided gentrification. Another reason why leftists hate them, and why anti-density zoning must be eradicated. And many of the politicians, race-haters, and developers working to eliminate single-family neighborhoods cite Matty's work.

So let's return to him.

Last week Mr. Concrete Jungle was on vacation in Europe, and I noticed that he kept proudly posting travel pics of expansive, pastoral, wide-open rural areas.

"Oooh, looky how beautiful!"

I thought that was odd. Dude wants to eliminate those things here in the U.S., but he travels abroad and singles out exactly those "outdoorsy nature" areas for his vacation pics.

So when he posted yet another "green" pic—his morning coffee foregrounded against lush undeveloped parkland—I jokingly commented, "You could fit at LEAST fifty more people on that property. I see room for four ADUs, maybe five. Get crackin', Mr. Billion. Don't waste land! There's people to cram."

Well, that struck a nerve! Matty snapped back, "This picture is taken in Italy which has five times America's population density…"

"Italy." As if that's a city, or town, or village (Matty felt his reply was so cutting he retweeted it).

That's why I get cross with rightists when they engage in similar foolishness, posting videos from Downtown L.A.'s skid row (which has been third world since Reagan was governor) and saying, "That's California for ya," as if this entire massive state is defined by one four-square-mile area in one city.

It's asinine when leftists do it, it's asinine when rightists do it.

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