Good credit is a critical prerequisite for borrowing, enabling cities to fund needed upkeep even if they resist increasing fees.

“You can’t handle the truth.”- A Few Good Men

For suburbia in 2026, that means austerity, that oftn means defunding your schools.

So for the US communities, your options are to borrow money, “punt” until the next administration, and go into debt, or user fees, which is the freemarketeers' wet dream.

This is what I don’t understand. The same people who call “urban” mayors irresponsible for NOT instituting more fees and building too much are the same people who call “suburban” mayors duplicitous for charging fees, as they are not allowed to build. This is literally the same “reformer.” What game is really going on here?

The current fiscal nightmare cities and school districts are now facing was not caused by a single item. It wasn’t one mayor or one unpaid bill; it was several things, well actually dozens, well...this is only FB, later Patreon, but it is not ONE thing. It is occurring because overlapping pressures rooted in many past actions are reshaping local finance, even as I type this. During the pandemic, federal relief, especially the $190 billion ESSER program, temporarily expanded school and municipal budgets.

That funding expired in 2024, creating a sudden “funding cliff” as districts lost a major revenue source while upholding higher staffing and service levels.

“So you’re saying they were irresponsible!”

“No, Jesus Christ, are you five, like there is no ‘gotcha,’ not like that.”

At the same time, federal support has remained relatively limited or uncertain, sometimes delayed or withheld, adding instability to local budgets.

(You know, because of the effing fa/c/ist in the White House that disaster patriarchy insists is "just the same" what you think is bad is your imagination, like your endometriosis! "See if we do this mutual aid garden dot dot dot dot")

In addition, cities are facing rising costs from inflation, infrastructure needs, and service demands, while revenue growth is slowing, and to add to this, some states are cutting taxes without replacing lost local funds, because they wouldn’t want to risk helping lazy people who aren’t men and aren’t white.

The result is a structural gap. To close it, local governments are raising fees, increasing property taxes, cutting services, and continuing to rely on borrowing—deepening dependence on capital markets rather than reducing it.

“But why do they have to borrow money?”

“You ask this question, but you just got through writing a 1000-word post on Newark and their negative Moody outlook?”

“Why do you think cities need credit?”

Hegemony has transformed modern cities from lived space to credit profiles. Our communal existence, from school to our social lives, is translated into tax base, revenue consistency, and debt capacity. Our communities are flattened into letter grades. In this conception, urban life is rendered commensurable, comparable, priced, and ranked, within the physics of risk.

Credit ratings produce cities. Your city is not the town square, the beautiful pond, no. Your city is its credit rating.

And this is solidified in op-eds, social media, and even at bars. Defining fiscal “health” as stability, predictability, and compliance, they establish the terms under which cities can borrow, build, and even imagine their future selves. Governance becomes anticipatory: budgets are molded not only by residents’ needs but also by the fear of a downgrade.

A credit rating is spatial discipline. The city is disciplined for investors, its future discounted in advance. And use and effectiveness are subordinated to its exchange value. The right to the city is now on its knees, to its obligation to repay.

It’s Nate running from Naz.

Credit ratings did not originate with neoliberalism—they had existed for decades—but the 1970s converted them from advisory tools into governing infrastructure. Earlier, cities borrowed through a mix of local banks, federal aid, and bond markets, with ratings as one input among others. The fiscal crises of the 1970s, especially the 1975 New York City collapse, shattered this system and accelerated a shift toward austerity and market dependence.

At the same time, regulatory changes—particularly the SEC’s 1975 creation of the NRSRO category—embedded ratings into financial rules, requiring institutions to rely on them.

As institutional investors replaced local lenders and cities increasingly financed themselves through debt, credit ratings became the common language of risk.

With this neoliberal restructuring, ratings became conditions of access to capital, altering urban governance around creditworthiness, discipline, and anticipatory compliance.

Suburban land use does not pay for itself, but in many cases can become “Minnie the Moocher.” By privileging single-family homes, cities spread housing infrastructure across large areas, limiting revenue per acre. Low-density development generates less tax revenue per acre, yet requires more roads, pipes, and services per resident.

The consequence is that single-family homes become a location of privatized gains and socialized tantrums. This individualistic white picket made-it-my-way lifestyle is heavily subsidized by business districts in large, often currently or formerly hypersegregated inner cities.

Over time, this disequilibrium becomes structural. As infrastructure ages, maintenance costs rise while the tax base remains thin. The thinness is exacerbated by the lack of development and seniors with caps on their property taxes or Prop 13 (a la California) protections. Municipal budgets fill the gap through higher property taxes, user fees, or, most persistently, debt. This is what gets me, you don’t development, AND you think debt is bad, but you don’t want, as you call, “nannygate” sharing and the feds telling you what to do.

You want it all, and you need to understand that is not how this works.

I didn’t say it’s fair or not fair. I’m simply saying what is, get mad at the Chicago School.

And your federal government no longer cares. The whole “the local is what matters most” was kind of a lie, and some of you folks are going to discover exactly why.

If you own a SFH, you actually aren’t paying enough taxes, not in comparison to what you’re getting. “Stable” homeownership masks a system that depends on continuous borrowing to sustain itself.

Most residential areas are loath to raise any taxes. This can be seen as a result of the plateau of lower and middle-class incomes in the USA after the Stagflation of 1973. High marginal tax rates were removed for high-income earners, which made middle- and working-class wages a target for increased executive pay. Worker productivity has increased more than 200% since 1970, but wages haven’t proportionally moved since 1973. And that money is not available for working and middle-class families to invest in their communities because they are just struggling to keep up with inflation.

This spatial model creates financial dependence. As cities turn to capital markets to finance basic obligations. They become governed by creditworthiness. Ratings become conditions of survival.

The suburban setting thus generates its own discipline: space expands, revenue thins, and the city is compelled to borrow, binding it to the abstract judgment of investors.

Do you want to pay or build? That is your choice.

I don’t want to pay fees. I want to have a SFH.

That’s not how this works in real life. Now you can kick and scream and cry, but one of those two things is happening, unless extractive capitalism ends tomorrow. Oh, we could, of course, have a sane federal government that follows the social contract and funds society properly, but FREEDOM and REFORM, and MY RIGHTS…

English literature for precocious young adults is filled with wild feats of fantasy. Who could forget the boy who could fly? Or a friendly Tigger afraid of the mirror ? Rich country gentry Toad’s lunatic driving of his automobiles caused him to crash 8 cars and put him in front of a magistrate. In “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Alice meets all sorts of wild, deranged characters. A caterpillar sm/oki/ng o/pium dispensing advice and the Mad Hatter. Would you trust the Mad Hatter, driven mad by mercury, not to poison your bergamot tea? Would you trust a conceited Toad to make rules for cycling?

Yet, for older adults, there is a bicycle fantasy that is as lofty as a nanny who can fly with her umbrella. English-born Californian John Forrester stated that the safest way to ride a bike is to act exactly like a car: “take the lane” and trust in the sanctity of the individual, somehow taming the illogic kaos of traffic.

To believe that riding a bicycle as though it were a car is safe is a madcap act of delusional character insertion into a fantasy: A Bicycle Mary Sue in a weird version of Frogger, where you always win. It is to inhabit a very particular kind of imported British Upper-Class-Twit-of-the-Year madness. This is not just a quirk of policy or lifestyle; it is a symptom of a deeper ideological delusion.

Even the halfway measures are borderline delusional. The FOUR FEET law is a cheap, no-infrastructure law that treats bicyclists like cheap cars.

There is no data that says it’s safer to practice vehicular cycling, just like there is scant data stating that FOUR FEET keeps anyone safer. Of course, I know we are in the USA, and selfish, unsupported hypotheses that dovetail with your self-centered, imaginary weltanschauung are always in vogue , but there is no data to support any of that. A recent study of Maryland’s three feet law found that automobiles were not respecting the space of bicycles.

“More cops then!” You have all of these funders with law degrees, but you seem to be lacking in intellectual acuity. Since you folks LOVE using the “street violence” analogy do you know peer reviewed research also stated that more cops didn’t reduce crime in hypersegregated inner city communities. Look if you’re going to co-opt something, co-opt research based propaganda that is in the realm of truth. In 2019 Northeastern University researchers O'Brien et al debunked the broken window theory.

The bicycle, that humble, emancipatory machine, and its strange transmogrification under the doctrine of "vehicular cycling” occurred because of a cult-like figure sitting atop a mushroom dispensing car-exhaust- addled wishcraft: John Forrester.

“Just ride really fast.” At least 20 mph according to Forrester in his book, “Effective Cycling.” 20 mph is the limit for many people as above this speed you are fighting wind resistance. It’s reminiscent of the advice given by the character Charles in “Better Off Dead.” “Go that way, really fast. If something gets in your way... turn.”

It is a seductive proposition for the libertarian cyclist, who imagines themself as a Nietzschean Übermensch, but it rests on epistemologically shaky ground.

According to John Pucher's 2021 article in Transportation Quarterly, Forrester’s entire framework hinges on a single piece of feigned data: one ride he took on a new bike path in Palo Alto. Pedaling at the velocity he was accustomed to from road riding, he estimated, ESTIMATED, that the “risk rate was at least 1,000 times greater on the sidepath than on the roadway.”

Unpeer-reviewed data—a biased anecdote, elevated to dogma.

This is why I say roadies are in a cult.

One solitary, unverified bullshit feeling, nothing more than … FEELINGS, became the cornerstone of the League of American Bicyclists, the training manual for every LCI instructor, and the unspoken gospel of roadies across the United States. A whole infrastructure of advocacy, EVEN TODAY, is built on a British transplant’s “truthiness” about a California bike lane.

You are not a visionary for riding your bicycle in the middle of traffic, and you’re not following any kind of rules based on any data, unless hubris male a$$hole is counted as peer-reviewed data.

What it states in peer reviewed data, rather than my “tummy thinks this”-- is that bicycle infrastructure reduced the risk of injury and death by half compared to unmodified road ways.

Lusk et al. found that the injury rate on Montreal bicycle paths was 28% less than unprotected streets.

“The RR of injury on cycle tracks was 0.72 (95% CI 0.60 to 0.85) compared with bicycling in reference streets. These data suggest that the injury risk of bicycling on cycle tracks is less than bicycling in streets.”

Lastly, Forrester’s solution to bad, aggressive, or dangerous car interactions is to act like a Hell’s Angel. 

He recommended Road Rage (WTF) so that drivers learned the consequence of poor decisions towards bicycles. And I see you folks doing this and they ask me why I don’t have a helmet, why are you following the typing of a mad man?! John Forrester was INSANE, in a bad way.

The asymmetry between the size of a racing bicycle and a modern super duty truck is enormous. You can’t road rage if you are writhing on the ground because some aggressive teen crushed you while rolling coal on your group. The Vikings Berserkers ate Amantia muscaria mushrooms before stripping naked and charging into battle unarmed. Instead of Bicycle infrastructure, Forrester is suggesting a similar course of action and it has been the death of many.

Instead of becoming a Forrestering Berserker Bicyclist, let’s build accessible, effective, non violent infrastructure that encourages the general public to ride the bicycle while humming to Freddie Mercury’s song.

Here are some inconvenient truths of an inconvenient protest. Some of you folks still insist on forgetting how we got here—people locked up in a concentration camp in Newark.

Newark Mayor Ras Baraka supported Harris for president. Larry Hamm of the People’s Organization for Progress supported Harris for president. And both are to her ideological left, so why?

A “safe state” is a misnomer, as we’ve since learned. No one is safe when the federal government completely abandons its duties.

So they understood what was at stake, as did I.

Who controls immigration? The feds.
Who controls funding for disabled people? The feds.
Who controls funding for scientific research, the parks, and the arts? Ding, ding, ding, the EFFING feds!!

Because of how the country works via the Constitution, you do not hand your country to a psychopath over a single issue, not even three or four issues or a dozen!!

You think I appreciated Biden and his War on Drugs? You think I forgot about all the Black people who went to jail thanks to him? I did not. But I also knew that the alternative wouldn’t even leave me room to fight back.

People whose families span ten generations or more (I’m a 14th-generation American) know the damage a sadistic federal government can do.

My family—like the families of Ras and Larry—has survived not just chattel slavery, but Reconstruction and its aftermath, the re-enslavement, the Nadir. Do you know that during the Nadir, my Great-great aunt was set on fire because she allowed Black people to live in her boarding house, so they wouldn’t get put on the chain gang. They threatened her, set her house on fire, and she was burned alive as they wouldn’t allow her to leave. My father moved to LA after his brother was dragged from his house, stripped, had his ba/lls cut off, and hung up in a tree as a 15-year-old for the suggestion that he was trying to pass, one drop could get you kill/ed.

We told you what was going to happen. And this is not a childish, “I told you so” taunt. I am saying to please listen, because not understanding how this works will harm all of us.

You are out gun/ned. And there are things worse than dying, but also, there are some really fascinating ways that you can die in the United States, see the paragraphs above.

Nonviolent demonstrations should be taking place at Delaney Hall, as they have been for a year. The conditions are horrendous. This can’t be normalized like how the Green Monster, the County Jail filled with Black people, is normalized, directly across the parking lot—-with ZERO irony from recent protesters who want to know how the parking is down there.

The facility should expect and accommodate regular visits by politicians and local and state officials. The McIver NO Delay Act, co-sponsored by Menendez and Watson, should be supported. NJ, the county, and the city of Newark should actively use health codes, environmental and land-use law, and safety regulations to disrupt operations. The state, county, and local government should support nonviolent protests around the perimeter of the facility.

Why do I say perimeter? Because going ON to the property triggers the FEDS.

Do you know who runs the Feds now? Oh yes, FASC/ISTS, they don’t give a f&&& about your First Amendment, but you already know that.

Is that inconvenient for you?! You don’t give an eff about the fas/cists in the White House, because YOU HAVE rights. Sometimes it is not just about you, sometimes you’re going to be inconvenienced during a protest and do things you don’t want to do , think about the long game, you’re not in Minnesota, there is no solidarity here, there is just each group doing what they want.

Some of you lack discipline.

If your objective is freeing detainees, we need the House. We need media that supports that objective. What we do not need is a New Jersey where Chris Christie's crew gets back into office, that is definitely on the table. In this state, we are coming dangerously close to an SPD-CPD Weimar situation. Sherrill won, can you folks let it the EFF GO? You have too much faith in people who still cling to their segregated school districts and segregated pools, who sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with open racists and chat with them on FB, because the Democrat that I hate, if you hate them too, well, who cares if you’re an open racist, sexist, and homophobic, I hate Heather, and he does too. Some of the loyal opposition is teaming up with independently minded Republicans with the idea that they aren’t going to turn fascist as soon as they get some leverage.

Mikie Sherrill won with support from people who could still vote. But with all that the feds are doing, large chunks of white New Jersey will still vote for a Republican, and I might not be able to vote; hell, white women might not be able to vote.

Side note, do you know that white women could vote when NJ was founded, and then it got stripped away? Did you know that?!

I am getting sick and tired of people who actively did not vote for sanity. Those who said the 50501 campaign strategy wasn’t adventurous enough are now self-righteous about Delaney—online. No one has even taken off a substantial amount of time off work.

Congressman McIver is facing a felony. Ras went to jail. And the same self-righteous people who said fascism wasn’t on the table—this is just like it was before—now say Ras is just being performative, and so is Andy Kim, and so is McIver, we’re all performing for the amusement of you—a revolutionary that won’t take off work and worked through COVID because you don’t believe in vaccines.

You folks are not ready. You’re not taking off from work. You’re not shutting Newark down, because you don’t live there and you’re scared of the people who live there, oh, I know now you, not you with the Black chick fetish—— but everyone else, you’re afraid to take the bus to Newark, but you got all these ideas. You view that place as a different country, its people as a different species. That is how you can protest down there with zero irony about the jail across the parking lot—filled with Black people. Oh, but those people did things wrong. Yeah. They were born Black in New Jersey. That’s their crime. You can go to county jail here for not paying parking tickets—if you’re Black. They send more Black boys to jail here than they do in Mississippi.

You are not Minnesota. You are delusional. You have no solidarity. You don’t give a damn about the detainees.

Most of you typing don’t even know anyone who is not of the same ethnicity as you, not in a way that would make you miss work. You don’t give a damn about Newark. You don't give a damn about immigrants. You don't give a damn about people detained unjustly at Delaney AND at the Green Monster. Because if you did, you wouldn’t have selfishly depressed the vote nationally, because of your being in the New York metro area, because of your “it’s all the same” rhetoric that echoes nationally.

I keep my eye on the ball. I have been watching Delaney for over a year. I watched how it grew out of spite, not care. I watched how you folks actively mocked other protests as “not real.” And now that disaster patriarchy has come to your door, you lack the discipline to stop adventurism tactics. We know how the police act, because ACAB. So, if one wants to keep focused on the detainees rather than the protesters, how do we move forward? Not like you’re moving right now.

How does ICE get shut down? A revolution, but you can’t take off work for that. So what are your options? The midterms. Your options are to put all these petty differences aside and focus on the midterms. Focus on the right to protest. Listen to the people who live in Newark. I get it—you don’t give a damn about Black people. But that right there is why Delaney exists. Why Flock exists. It is why a militarized police force exists. It is why Trump is in the WH. It all exists because you don’t give a damn if Black people live or die. And what you’re doing right now—disrespecting the mostly Black section of Newark, and what they are asking—is being a boot. You’re just another boot. Instrumentalizing a community. Instrumentalizing detainees for your own selfish, adventuresome ends.
So I say again, as you go to work this morning —because you don’t have time for the revolution—make a plan.

Get along with your family, your neighborhoods, and people who pretty much mirror you politically except for a few differences. So we can take over Congress. And if we don’t, so we can actually work together to survive this.

This disrespect, this admiration of adventurism, this objectifying of people’s pain for cash and prizes—it is not helpful.

Being dead right is actually easier. Being pragmatic so you can fight another day? It’s less sexy. But we need that.

Protests should be inconvenient, for everyone.

In this episode, we break down what the LIRR strike really revealed—not just about wages and contracts, but about power.

Over three days, the busiest commuter rail system in North America shut down, impacting hundreds of thousands of riders across New York City and Long Island. But the real story isn’t the disruption—it’s the dependence. The entire region relies on labor that is expected to function without interruption, without leverage, and without recognition.
We pivot from the headlines to the structure:

Why can one strike shut down an entire metropolitan region?
Who actually holds power in public infrastructure—workers, agencies, or riders?
What does it mean that there is no real “backup plan” for transit?
And why does the system return to “normal” so quickly after nearly collapsing?

Drawing from feminist urbanism and political economy, we argue:
Transit is not just infrastructure—it’s a labor system.
And when labor pauses, the illusion of stability disappears.
This episode connects worker power to larger questions:

The fragility of commuter cities
The hidden time tax placed on working people
and how “efficiency” often masks structural inequity

If you rely on public transit, this story is about your time, your movement, and your autonomy.

D10/11 speaks with her about her vision for the Third Ward.

Early voting for the June 2 election starts May 26!

In this 30‑minute one‑on‑one conversation, Lo Sontag (D10/11) sits down with Stefanie Santiago, a Bloomfield‑based community activist working to strengthen local democracy through civic education.

Stefanie has initiated a Civic Education Program focused on helping neighbors understand the role of district leaders, why local political structures matter, and how local and federal politics are deeply connected. This conversation breaks down how power actually functions at the neighborhood level—and why participation doesn’t start (or end) with presidential elections.

More info: https://www.bloomfieldforprogress.com/stefaniesantiago

Together, they discuss:

What district leaders do—and why the role is often misunderstood
How civic education can rebuild trust and participation in local politics
The connection between local governance and the future of democracy
Why organizing at the neighborhood level still matters

This episode is for anyone frustrated with national politics who wants to better understand where real political power lives—and how to engage it locally.

In this clip, I speak with Jack McKee of Hudson County Complete Streets to talk about why this moment matters, what’s broken, and what’s possible if we demand better. From reliability to accessibility to who transit actually serves (and who it doesn’t), this isn’t just about trains and buses—it’s about power, equity, and daily life.

If you’ve ever been stuck on a platform, skipped a trip because it felt unsafe, or planned your life around a system that doesn’t plan for you—this is your conversation.

Join us this Saturday. Show up, speak up, and help shape what comes next.

#NorthJerseyTransit #TransitEquity #HudsonCounty #PublicTransit #Urbanism #FeministUrbanism

“So hypersegregation didn’t directly follow the emancipation?”

“No, Johnny, it did not.”

You wonder if the stories presented by the sanctioned press and amplified by the sanctioned voices are completely accurate. The binary is not real, not in any part of life.

Gov. Mikie Sherrill this week signed S3945/A4791, a bill that revises restrictions on the sale of hemp products and intoxicating hemp beverages through November 2026.

The law tightens limits on online sales of certain hemp-derived products and delays stricter enforcement until November. Sponsors include Senate President Nicholas Scutari and Assembly members Robert Karabinchak, Linda Carter, and Cody Miller. The legislation follows concerns from regulators and lawmakers over intoxicating hemp beverages existing in a gray area between cannabis and alcohol oversight.
(Governor’s Office; ROI‑NJ)

Archives watchdog: military records release was human error

In Washington, an inspector general investigation has concluded that the release of Gov. Sherrill’s largely unredacted military records during last year’s gubernatorial race was not politically motivated, but the result of human error.

According to the National Archives and Records Administration’s watchdog, a technician failed to follow established protocols when responding to a Freedom of Information Act request. The report found no evidence of coordination or political intent behind the disclosure, which included sensitive personal information.
(CBS News)

World Cup brings tax debate to the Meadowlands

With the 2026 FIFA World Cup expected to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to New Jersey, Democratic lawmakers are advancing a proposal to temporarily raise taxes in areas expected to see the biggest tourism spikes, including around MetLife Stadium.

The plan would raise the sales tax to 9.625% in the Meadowlands district during the tournament and add temporary surcharges on hotels, transportation, and some sports betting activity. Supporters say the revenue would help cover security and infrastructure costs tied to hosting the global event.

Republicans argue the plan would violate Gov. Sherrill’s campaign pledge not to raise the sales tax, warning that residents and local businesses could feel the impact alongside tourists.
(NJ.com; POLITICO)

Early polling shows strong approval for Sherrill

Gov. Sherrill is beginning her first budget season with solid political footing. A new Fairleigh Dickinson University poll finds nearly six in 10 New Jersey voters approve of her job performance roughly two months into her term.

The poll shows overwhelming support among Democrats and majority approval among independents, giving the new governor significant leverage as she begins negotiations over taxes and spending. The survey was conducted March 20–28 and is the first independent statewide measure of her tenure.
(NJ.com; New Jersey Monitor)

Newark school deal draws scrutiny over donor ties

In Newark, Mayor Ras Baraka says he played no role in a potential $500 million deal to secure a new elementary school, after reporting revealed the developer tied to the proposal is one of his political donors.

The project involves developer Scott Fields, who contributed to Baraka’s gubernatorial campaign. At a recent school board meeting, district officials declined to identify the developer, listing only a limited liability corporation. NJ Spotlight News later identified Fields through public records.

Critics have questioned both the cost and the lack of competitive bidding for the project, which would lease — rather than purchase — the building over decades.
(NJ Spotlight News)

McIver asks appeals court to toss federal charges

Rep. LaMonica McIver has asked the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals to dismiss federal assault charges stemming from a 2025 scuffle outside Newark’s Delaney Hall migrant detention facility.

In a new filing, McIver argues her actions during a congressional oversight visit were protected by legislative immunity and that the prosecution violates separation-of-powers principles. She also contends the case is politically motivated. McIver has pleaded not guilty.
(New Jersey Monitor)

That’s tonight’s Last Call: delayed hemp enforcement, a World Cup tax fight, strong early polling , and no shortage of legal drama. As always in New Jersey, everything is temporary except the controversy.

My review of the 2026 New Jersey Bike & Walk Summit: Les Liaisons Dangereuses à la Conférence Vélo or Dangerous Narratives

I have attended the New Jersey Bicycle and Walk Summit every year for over ten years. This year reminded me of Les Liaisons dangereuses—but instead of drawing-room discourse on bedroom conquests, we had panel discussions, and their weapons were not seduction letters but carefully deployed narratives about “the undocumented” and “traffic violence.”

The Vicomte de Valmont and the Marquise de Merteuil understood something the presenters and organizers of this conference also understood: that power is not merely about what you do, but about what you can make others believe you are doing.

The most effective cruelty is the one performed in the language of virtue.

If you have no power, or are perceived as having none, you cease to be a person. You become an object. An object to be mined for data, to be woven into a compelling narrative, to be trotted out on cue so that a well-funded initiative can claim, “This project is for the people.”

The conference panels concerned themselves with arranging the conditions for a grand deceit. First came the discussion of electric bicycles. The opening falsehood arrived dressed as moral clarity, pronounced with priestly gravity, “These rules are horrible, because first off, they hurt the undocumented.”

It is true, of course, that bureaucracy-laden rules disproportionately harm the undocumented, as they harm everyone historically excluded from the corridors of power.

But the argument made was not for the undocumented; it was for laissez-faire economics. It conveniently omitted that these rules exist because PeopleForBikes—a business lobby, not an advocacy group, despite the name—wielded its considerable power to redefine the bicycle to include mopeds. They did this so their business membership could access subsidies and tax breaks. This is a fact. And yet, in that room, we were meant to pretend it hadn’t happened. But I haven’t forgotten. I don’t have a grant to help me forget. I am still here, looking out the window, saying it’s raining.

So, the argument was made: electric bicycles must be unregulated, for the sake of the undocumented.

Then came the final panel of the afternoon, on Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR).

Now, if the undocumented were truly the compass by which this group navigated, one might expect a similar concern here.

One might think the conversation about ALPR—cameras that log the location of every vehicle, a tool for surveillance and, inevitably, for immigration enforcement—would be shaped by the same urgent empathy.

It was not.

The response to concerns about civil liberties was swift and ‘pragmatic:’ “undocumented people get run over, too. So, if we have to trade a little civil rights for a little traffic safety, isn’t it worth it to save lives? Safety first.”

It was a stunning pivot, executed with zero shame. Only an older woman in the audience dared to challenge it.

This is why I will never allow white men to mock “Karen,” because “Karen” is typically the only one in the room who will challenge hegemony.

These were the same people who, two hours earlier, had been practically weeping over the regulatory burden on businesses.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do. People want to return their electric bicycles!”--distraught business owner.

Their grief was for the constraints placed on commerce, for the red tape that chokes innovation. But for people, “Well, if you didn’t do anything wrong, you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.”

I was getting that kind of weltanschauung.

For our neighbors, friends, and families, who might those cameras surveil or displace? For this conference's attendees, regulation was not a burden then; it was a necessary weapon.

Then they regurgitated what study after study has shown to be untrue.

“Tech is more neutral than people.”

That’s a lie, and they know it. Anyone with an edu email handle and sat at that conference knows that is a lie. Urban planning is now development’s Victoire, a complicit chambermaid.

Bike advocacy, I hope I’m informing you. I won’t yet judge you.

So let me understand —regulation is bad when it hampers the bourgeoisie and the capitalists’ interests, but good when it regulates regular people.

Maybe you folks need some education on Law and the Political Economy. The libertarian stench that continues to emanate from the bicycle community is getting more putrid by the day.

The only working-class racialized people in the room -not working or with the university- were there to receive awards for their work on “traffic violence.” They were children. Of course, they were children. And I overheard a planner/lawyer murmur with satisfaction, “We need to use children more.” The cynicism was breathtaking. You need to use children because racialized adults who look like me are a little too uncooperative. They ask difficult questions. They see through the performance.

I find it strange that hegemony never suggests using white children to push for bike lanes in upper-middle-class neighborhoods.

But working-class and poor racialized children, deployed in the service of red-light cameras? That is an a(door)able of opportunity.

I want an honest argument. The disingenuousness of the day was aggravating.

Here are some truths:

The greenway is for recreation, not for connecting hyper-segregated communities.

The “four-foot law” was written for roadies cosplaying the Tour de France, not for people trying to get to work by bicycle.

And “traffic violence”? It’s a disgusting co-optiztion of a framing that EVEN in its original iteration as “street violence” was ineffective as it pathologized hyper-segregated neighborhoods harmed by lax gun laws, but now that co-opting is an elite capture communication weapon. The term “traffic violence” is used to redirect health dollars away from grassroots organizations run by racialized people to foundation-funded “traffic safety” groups —whose board members are developers, tech oligarchs, and lawyers.

It is easier to use racialized children as your props and death data for grant proposals. You kill two birds with one stone. I’ll let you marinate on what I mean....

I know some of you are like, “Well, you should?”

I should what, volunteer, I did that.

Donate, I did that too.

So now what is left is me documenting.

Space is a means of production, and it is a mistake to allow hegemony to map the way out of Auto Asphyxiation or define safety.

We reflect on key moments from the event, the themes that emerged, and the broader political and cultural context shaping the No Kings movement today. From grassroots organizing to challenges ahead, this conversation explores what rejecting hierarchy and authoritarianism looks like in practice—and where this movement could be headed next.

Whether you attended the event, followed it online, or are just hearing about No Kings for the first time, this episode offers critical insight and grounded analysis you won’t want to miss.

Also check out Lo’s commentary on the subject.