Substacks recommended by Jon Boyd | What Are Streets For Newsletter

Recommended by Jon Boyd

In Practice

By Jeff Fong

Practical politics for housing reform.

If there were a sculpture garden with YIMBY monuments, one of them would be dedicated to Laura Foote.

- Jon Boyd

Car Free America

By Mark R. Brown

City Planning and Transportation Policy.

Conjugations & Constellations

A Substack dedicated to learning historical languages and medieval texts about the cosmos.

Regular notes with examples of Old English terms compared to their Latin variants.

- Jon Boyd

We Can Have Nice Things

By Stephanie Nakhleh

Stephanie Nakhleh is a journalist from Los Alamos covering how policy shapes daily life. She writes about systems, housing, and local government—and what it takes to build a future that works better for more people.

We cannot overstress the effects of parking mandates and this Substack does a great explainer for them.

- Jon Boyd

Londonist: Time Machine

A geeky, cheeky, thrice-weekly digest of London's history.

Austin Woods

eat a peach

Free Range City

By Andrew Burleson

Cities, Progress, and Parenting

Chuck with Strong Towns

By Chuck Marohn

The Substack home of Charles Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns.

SP Historian

By Sebastián Panatt

The past of the Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians and many other ancient peoples, by a historian and writer / El pasado de griegos, romanos, cartagineses y muchos otros pueblos de la Antigüedad, por un historiador y escritor. Channels: English and Spanish.

S(ubstack)-Bahn

By S.Y. Lee

deep dives into trains, transit and politics (usually outside US)

flâneurbanist

By Billy Cooney

Making sense of cities through book reviews and essays

Raises honest questions about urban theory.

- Jon Boyd

Second Story

By Robert Khederian

A newsletter for those who love old houses and history.

I had already been enjoying the newsletter, but I am trying to learn how to use the HABS archives, and the latest post gives tips on how to do this.

- Jon Boyd

Yes In My Spare Room

By Andrew Berg

Housing Abundance Starts at Home

Take it Spanish

Learn Spanish the fun way 🇪🇸 💃🏻 🥘 ☀️ Each Friday, you will learn 3 words, 2 expressions and 1 thing about me

Maximum New York

By Daniel

NYC abundance—more people, more housing, more opportunity, more greatness than ever.

Jeremy's Quarterly

By Jeremy Levine

Insights on housing policy, movement building, governance, and mushrooms, shared from the YIMBY trenches. Published weekly.

Urban Proxima

By Jeff Fong

Cities, Technology, and the Future

The Overhead Wire Daily

By The Overhead Wire by Jeff Wood

The Overhead Wire Daily is a newsletter focused on bringing people news about cities daily. This particular substack is a recreation of the basic version of my daily newsletter started in 2006. As the slow death of Twitter continues, I'm branching out...

The Overhead Wire is a good place to read for all things transit.

- Jon Boyd

michael’s Substack

By michael lewyn

My personal Substack

Michael Lewyn is a law professor who writes about land use.

- Jon Boyd

Progress and Poverty

By Progress & Poverty

Exploring the implications of Georgism in the modern world. Brought to you by the Center for Land Economics

The best writing on the Land Value Tax and about property taxes in general.

- Jon Boyd

The Polymerist

By Tony Maiorana

Commercialization of chemicals and switching from oil and gas to sustainable feedstocks.

City Observatory

City Observatory: What matters to the success of cities.

Policies for Places

By John Tibbitt

Ideas for making better places

Policies for Places offers a broad sociological analysis of urbanism and challenges some urbanist hypotheses.

- Jon Boyd

The Deleted Scenes

By Addison Del Mastro

Urbanism, culture, idiosyncrasy

This is my second favorite Substack newsletter. (My favorite is What Are Streets For.) There are lots of fresh angles here and you should check them out.

- Jon Boyd

Ride On: The Drive for Better Transportation Systems

By Ben Atkinson

Exploring how to make transportation markets as efficient, equitable, and passenger friendly as possible

I Would Prefer Not To

By Ximena González

Making room for the critical takes we need to foster a more equitable city.

Southern Urbanism

The curated content unlocking the stories of those building better cities in the South.

Potentially Interesting Roman History

By James Coverley

Roman history with the potential to be really very interesting.

Walls and Bridges: Creating Connections in a Chaotic World

By Ben Atkinson

Exploring how to make local economies more open in the face of threats from abroad

Thoughts About Cities

By Joshua Woods

Professional transit planner here to talk about transit planning and the social forces that shape our daily lives.

City of Yes

By Ryan Puzycki

Exploring urbanism, housing, and how to make cities work for everyone

Recollections, Reflections, Fantasies, Fictions

By Randy Tibbits

Scenes Of a Life I Think Was Mine

The author shares many beautiful photos of Paris and original research about the artist, Emma Richardson Cherry.

- Jon Boyd

The Black Guitarist

By Quinn

JUNO nominated guitarist, composer, arranger , bandleader and singer. Sharing my experiences about being a black woman jazz guitarist in this world.

A jazz guitarist in Montreal. A great place to learn jazz standards.

- Jon Boyd

A Year of Jane Austen

By Annette Gordon

My personal journey into all things Jane Austen starting this commemoration year of 2025 and beyond.

The New Urban Order

By Diana Lind

Exploring cities around the world, and the housing, climate, mobility, culture, and tech in them.

Historical essays

By Ariel Hessayon

Early Modern History (usually)

History blog specializing in the Early Modern period. Much London content.

- Jon Boyd

Foodlore & More

By David S. Shields

Welcome to the Foodlore & More newsletter written by David S. Shields. Each issue will have writings on ingredients, culinary history, the lives of chefs or histories of restaurants, and a historic recipe or menu with my commentary.

Build the Next Right Thing

By Seth Zeren

Thoughts on housing abundance, urban stewardship, and civic delight.

Sonja Trauss Livejournal

Radical incrementalism