Addison Del Mastro

4 days ago | thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro

Is there a German word for an apparently disorganized space that only works for the one person who understands it? I saved this drawing in my phone, a long time ago, of a cabin with a squirrel family in it—I guess it was from a children’s book, or something—and the picture showed this comfy, cluttered cabin stuffed with stuff. The person who shared it was saying he’d take that over the clean minimalism that’s in vogue in home decorating. That idea of clutter as comforting, I kind of get it.

5 days ago | thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro

Cities Are Not Luxury Goods, City of Yes, Ryan Puzycki, April 24, 2025This is a great piece making a point that almost goes without saying among urbanists/YIMBYs/housing advocates, but which I suspect isn’t necessarily understood by the general public, at least those who don’t live in cities, which is probably most of us. Cities were never meant to be luxury goods—but policies rooted in scarcity thinking turned superstar cities like New York into them anyway.

6 days ago | thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro

At an urbanism/housing meetup the other week, I had an interesting chat with one of the D.C. YIMBY officers. We were talking about this question that sometimes comes up in debates over housing: can you “solve the housing crisis”—i.e., build enough new supply that prices come back down to normal-ish levels—without developing any new land? I don’t really think there is or has to be a strict answer here. Almost nobody suggests no new land should ever be developed.

1 week ago | discoursemagazine.com | Addison Del Mastro

I love figuring out what old buildings used to be. “Informal, hyperlocal history” is a phrase I used in a piece on a curious old building (an old secret military contractor office that later became a print shop), to describe how I think about these stories: What always surprises me a little bit when I go down the rabbit hole digging for information is the sheer number of memories and anecdotes people have about every place under the sun.

1 week ago | thedeletedscenes.substack.com | Addison Del Mastro

On a work happy hour Zoom from back in the pandemic time, my wife had to find the oldest thing in our house, for a little game.