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u/whitemice

Building More Housing Creates 'Moving Chains' of Affordability
▲ 4 r/strongtownsGR

Building More Housing Creates 'Moving Chains' of Affordability

New, very concise (3.3 minutes), video on the Pew study concerning move chains; and how "luxury" improves housing affordability.

youtu.be
u/whitemice — 8 hours ago
▲ 6 r/strongtownsGR

Thoughts: Uptown shuttle to connect to the Amphitheater?

Uptown BID/CID is funding a shuttle to connect to the Amphitheater. Essentially an event-night DASH.

What are people's thoughts on this?

Where is uptown?

This seems entirely redundant of Rapid #5 & #6.

Sincerely asking . . . . I don't get it. I've heard for years comments about bringing the DASH to the neighborhoods; which, cool [except, who pays for it?]. But there is public transit here, and it is pretty good.

Unfortunately BID/CID meetings are not [genuinely] public meetings, so there is nothing to read.

reddit.com
u/whitemice — 3 days ago
▲ 32 r/strongtownsGR+1 crossposts

Tomorrow: StrongtownsGR & The Planning Dept (2026-05-20)

When: Wednesday, May 2th, 6:30pm

Where: Downtown Grand Rapids (29 Pearl St NW)

"zoneGR" is now underway, a comprehensive rewrite of Grand Rapids' zoning ordinance; all the big items are on the table: Infill Development, Parking Requirements, Corner Retail, ADUs, Green Space Requirements. etc... Now is the time to ensure that the next land-use ordinance for the city of Grand Rapids can deliver on the aspirations of the 2024 Master Plan.

Also, so many other things underway. The GRForward plan is up for a rewrite, not to mention everything going on - or not going on - regarding mobility.

u/whitemice — 3 days ago
▲ 3 r/strongtownsGR

Happy Friday! Who's the most Strongtowns adjacent comedian?

For the record, I am not a comedy person, it is something I usually stumble upon. But I've seen a few lately which seem at least Urbanist adjacent.

So my question is: Who is the most Strongtowns adjacent comedian? At least to the degree one can expect any kind of intellectual consistency from a comedian.

My nominee is Dan Donohue.

u/whitemice — 7 days ago
▲ 28 r/strongtownsGR

Strolling through Monroe North... (5/12)

On my way to the ZoneGR Community Connector training on Wednesday, can't take the DASH, because it's now a venue shuttle, so I have to walk the length of Monroe North.

A very nice bus stop, with no bus service, and the perpetually closed Corewell CTI "pedestrian" through-way.

A good reminder of why we have to continue to attend all these meetings. :(

u/whitemice — 7 days ago
▲ 21 r/strongtownsGR

More East River's Edge Trail Work (5/14)

They've been plugging away at this project. After the debacle that is the Division Ave .... what to call it? ... downtown it is harder to trust planning documents; and the choke point of this path has always been the railroad, where the trail has to swing out to the road and then back again. How will that turn out? Based on the amount of work going on I'm feeling optimistic (and DGRi is involved, a good sign).

u/whitemice — 7 days ago
▲ 20 r/strongtownsGR+1 crossposts

Planning Commission Agenda, 2026-05-14

  • 2041 Eastern Avenue SE : returning agenda item from 2026-04-23, coffee shop drive-thru
  • 2071 East Beltline Avenue NE : Credit Union w/drive-thru
  • 617 W Fulton St : Coffee shop drive-thru in mixed-use development
  • 522 Stocking Avenue NW : The Wrench Club, is it an auto-oriented use or a club-house
  • 705 Eleventh St NW : Three story residential, in city.

Drive-thrus are kinda having a moment.

urbangr.org
u/whitemice — 9 days ago
▲ 4 r/strongtownsGR

Updated Commission Vacancy List (2026-05-12)

  • Community Relations Commission: 1
  • North Quarter CIA: 1
  • Public Safety: 1 (Ward #2, contact Commissioner Knight)
  • South Division-Grandville Ave CIA: 1
  • Southtown CIA: 1
  • Uptown BID: 1
  • Urban Agriculture Committee: 1 (Ward #2, contact Commissioner Knight)
  • Vital Streets Oversight: 1
grandrapidscity.primegov.com
u/whitemice — 10 days ago
▲ 1 r/PostgreSQL

Migrating SPLs with Complex Types (from Informix)

I am working on porting some stored functions from Informix; the functions on Informix use complex types (ROW & MULTISET in Informix speak), like:

RETURNING MULTISET ( ROW (equipment_id INT, meter_reading FLOAT, event_date DATETIME YEAR TO DAY, date_diff INT, hour_diff INT, max_hours INT, record_id INT, valid CHAR(1)) NOT NULL );
-- DEFINE THE MULTISET
DEFINE v_return MULTISET ( ROW (equipment_id INT, meter_reading FLOAT, event_date DATETIME YEAR TO DAY, date_diff INT, hour_diff INT, max_hours INT, record_id INT, valid CHAR(1)) NOT NULL );

In Informix it is possible to insert into a MULTISET (essentially an array) as if it is a table, and then that can be returned from the SPL.

  INSERT INTO TABLE(v_return) VALUES (
    ROW (v_result.equipment_id,
         v_result.meter_reading,
         v_result.event_date,
         v_datediff, v_meterdiff,
         v_maxhours,
         v_result.record_id,
         v_valid) );

I get that I can create arrays of composite types in Postgresql plpgsql like

CREATE TYPE xyz AS(); abc xyz%TYPE[]

but I'm missing if there is syntax to insert row into the array.

Is there no equivalent of ROW/MULTISET behavior in plpgsql?

reddit.com
u/whitemice — 11 days ago
▲ 6 r/strongtownsGR

>The CRC is a City board that connects community concerns to action! We make recommendations to City Leadership about policy, ordinances, and community education that is responsive and reflective of the community’s needs. Everyone is welcome, please come be part of the conversation!

Aside: this board has no residency requirement? Uhm...

There is currently a vacancy; you can always see commission member information and vacancies @ https://www.grandrapidsmi.gov/media-manager/media-pages/boards-commissions/citizen-boards-and-commissions-current-vacancy-list/

u/whitemice — 15 days ago
▲ 6 r/strongtownsGR

>Rather than accepting high living costs as a given, we can show how they are contingent. For example, every time somebody claims that a family of four needs a $132,400 annual income, based on the Urban Institute’s estimate, we can point out that these cost burdens can drop to $90,512 in urban neighborhoods with plenty of townhouses or just $74,581 in a multimodal neighborhoods with abundant apartments, resulting in more health, opportunity and happiness.

u/whitemice — 16 days ago
▲ 2 r/strongtownsGR

Hope Network is discontinuing its Wheels to Work transportation program at the end of May,:

>We have done everything we can to make the program sustainable. But despite operational improvements and a strong commitment from our team, Wheels to Work has continued to operate at a significant loss – averaging approximately $300,000 per month – due to a structural gap between available funding and the true cost of delivering rides.

u/whitemice — 17 days ago
▲ 12 r/strongtownsGR

Citing efficiency issues Ferris attempted to cut the transit pass (WAVE card) program for students but got sufficient push back to restore the program.

Finally a win, albeit a small one, for public transportation.

>FSU could not provide an exact budgetary cost for the WAVE pass program, saying pass usage varies too much for such an estimate

Eh? Like, how much did you spend in the last cycle, that's how these things work.

u/whitemice — 17 days ago
▲ 3 r/strongtownsGR

Changes at HUD now encourage realtors to engage in FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) concerning crime (*1) and good/bad schools (*2).

>The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development late last week issued a memo saying residential real estate agents should be speaking with buyer clients and providing informations around topics such as crime and schools.

This is a serious step backwards for the real-estate industry, which is still/already fraught with equity issues.

(*1) We all know what that is code for. And how many realtors are sincerely versed in the data?
(*2) Not actually a thing, in the same way leprechauns and unicorns are not a thing.

u/whitemice — 17 days ago
▲ 12 r/strongtownsGR

Interesting post considering the depth of the division between a central city and its suburbs.

From my perspective it seems that there is a divide, but that it has softened significantly over the past two decades. I haven't heard a co-worker mention "gang wars at the mall" in several years. And ...

>City residents would shop at downtown stores, hang out at plazas, eat at restaurants, but generally not so for suburbanites. Increasingly downtown stores and restaurants would cater to the downscale clientele that would frequent the downtown areas in both cities.

... I don't think describes Grand Rapids; downtown seems to have almost reconfigured itself for our suburban neighbors, despite GR Forward et al and other lofty plans holding the shelves down at City Hall.

I haven't seen migration statistics recently - that used to be a thing - of where people are coming from. Once upon a time there was even a club of sorts for Chicago expats. Is more in-migration from nearer places now?

What are your thoughts on GR's city/suburb divide, economically and culturally?

u/whitemice — 18 days ago
▲ 5 r/strongtownsGR

A look at the housing vs. wages conversation where someone took the time to do the math rather than shaking fist at clouds (rare!).

>Michigan wages — at the median and near the bottom — have, modestly, kept up with the headline cost of living over the past two decades. They’ve outpaced inflation in food, transportation, healthcare, and most other categories. The one place where the cost of living has clearly outrun earnings is housing. That single category is where almost all of the lived sense of “we’re falling behind” comes from, and it falls hardest on the households that can least absorb it.

u/whitemice — 19 days ago
▲ 1 r/PostgreSQL

I have a working FOREIGN SERVER defined for a SQL-Server, and I can map to TABLE or QUERY of a table, but attempts to map to a VIEW or it seems the query of view results in an error.

>ERROR: DB-Library error: DB #: 20018, DB Msg: General SQL Server error: Check messages from the SQL Server, OS #: -1, OS Msg: , Level: 16

I can do the schema import via IMPORT FOREIGN SCHEMA and it does enumerate the views, have their columns, etc... but attempting to access the contents of a view results in the same above error message.

PostgreSQL 18.3 on Rocky Linux 9.7

UPDATE: Not sure why this doesn't manifest for tables, but I do find an error from the FreeTDS log:

>Heterogeneous queries require the ANSI_NULLS and ANSI_WARNINGS options to be set for the connection. This ensures consistent query semantics. Enable these options and then reissue your query."

Possibly because of how those views are assembled. Now, how to get that set for the FreeTDS connection/session.

SOLVED: Setting sqlserver_ansi_mode to true resolved the issue, so it wasn't really about VIEW vs. TABLE but how the upstream server is assembling the VIEW(s). It, itself, uses linked and replicated databases.

>CREATE SERVER XXXXXXX FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER tds_fdw OPTIONS (servername 'XXXXXX', database 'XXXXXXX', sqlserver_ansi_mode 'true');

reddit.com
u/whitemice — 22 days ago
▲ 13 r/strongtownsGR

Now that's a list.

Back in 2008, in the midst of The Great Recession, when gasoline tipped north of $6/gal [adjusted for inflation], is when I started my journey towards a car-lite life. I was also ~36 years old, which is about when natural vigor begins to decline; and retirement is only twenty-five years away, so you start to really think about that too.

So the initial reasons for me were:

  • Stop paying for gas
  • Lower overall cost of living
  • Get daily exercise without trying. - exercise is good, but I've proven at that point I'm probably not going to do it.
  • Lose weight naturally
  • Improve cardiovascular health - I'd been ambulanced to a cardiac center by that point in my life . . .would prefer not to do that again for a long time.

And in the beginning I kept my car, and my sorta rule was I would ride as long as it was warm and dry. Over time my ride temperature threshold dropped to 45F and 40% chance of rain, because it turns out it doesn't matter all that much. Then it continued to decline to not-ice, because Michigan has a lot of mornings in the 30s that turn into perfectly fine days.

Eventually, ~2015, I got rid of my car. While all those other reasons were still in play the central reasons did shift more to:

  • Smell the world again - I spent much of my youth in a rural environment, but I did inherit the strange American thought that Rural = Outside, and Urban = Inside life. But the outside is always there, everywhere. It was nice to get that back.
  • Hear your surroundings
  • Notice the seasons changing - Spring and Autumn both smell amazing.
  • Improve your mood - it really does help to be outside and get natural exercise.
  • Make spontaneous stops - once or so a month something happens or is going on and my commute becomes a little side-quest. That never happens when you drive
  • See your neighbourhood up close - there is more on any given block than any Motorist ever sees
  • Interact more with neighbours - it takes awhile, at first you see someone repeatedly, then you nod at each other, then some comment gets exchanged, and then you get to know somebody.

In the before-the-pandemic times the NOBL (Belknap) association held a series of meet-ups about different topics. One topic was mobility and car-lite life; several car-free and car-lite people attended. Everyone told a similar story, that it began practical, but that in the end they would never go back because of all those other reasons. Because life with less driving is simply a better life.

What were/are your reasons?

momentummag.com
u/whitemice — 24 days ago
▲ 6 r/strongtownsGR

Nice op-ed in Crains for AHM's package of housing bills; the link should be a gifted link and load without paywall.

>A substantial 84% of voters support allowing starter homes the size of a 2- or 3-bedroom apartment, while 69% support allowing builders to create homes on smaller lots. Building smaller lowers the cost of new construction and frees up more space for the kinds of homes we actually need—modest, affordable homes where our children can make memories and have a place to call their own.

>The polling also shows that 67% of voters support making it easier to build modest homes, such as duplexes and backyard cottages (also known as accessory dwelling units, or ADUs). ADUs are often occupied by relatives, such as adult children or grandparents, so a statewide policy would grow our state’s housing supply while strengthening family stability and intergenerational living.

u/whitemice — 25 days ago