Some of y'all are concerned about the Democratic Party draft platform, especially the #climate section.

I think some of those concerns are valid, like the relative lack of ambition in transportation emissions.

But there's something big I haven't heard anyone talk about yet. /1

In the Sanders-Biden Unity Task Force recs on climate, there was mention of "supercharging" investment in to build more affordable #housing.

That same language (& the same mechanism of the National Housing Trust Fund) is in the platform, but not in the climate section. /2

It's a big deal that the platform plans to address the shortage of affordable housing in the US (and early, on page 19). Housing costs are a major economic problem for poor people, young people & people of color.

Where we build that housing matters. /2

https://mcusercontent.com/b575b9e5364b5673b6f9df3f1/files/8d516a5c-9af5-4d7a-ab02-d5aaff690faa/2020_07_21_DRAFT_Democratic_Party_Platform.01.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1l-9yIXgUtKldpDjaVQhcVotlKjLj5-WJlKUvYuqVsc19tOX7flrSRWPU

The platform outlines a plan to expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit to help build affordable housing, and "make sure urban, suburban, and rural areas all benefit."

News flash: We *cannot* afford to build any more isolated housing in the suburbs and meet climate goals. /4

Let's be clear here that suburbs (and single-family zoning in cities) is a climate disaster. It isolates people far from jobs & services, making automobiles a necessity.

And we can't afford any more automobiles. /5

The reason that many haven't realized this is that they think EVs will save us. And while vehicle electrification is an essential part of the solution (particularly trucks), I see no forecasts for the voluntary EV market that get us near the 1.5°C pathway that IPCC laid out. /6

Pretty soon we are going to have to straight up ban internal combustion engine cars, like Norway, Iceland, the UK and the Netherlands are doing (by 2030/2035).

EVs will still have high sticker prices, and the supply of used cars will be tight meaning more expensive used cars. /7

That's going to be a disaster for people stuck in the burbs. And the way things are going, it won't be middle-class white people, it will increasingly be poor people of color, like in Paris, who are in the burbs.

Building more suburban homes is a massive mistake. /8

The fundamental problem here is that the Democratic Party is still not seeing the climate and equity nexus of the housing problem. They've missed the climate part, and are thinking like this is the 1960s.

It's not. The world is changing, fast. /9

Urbanism is the solution here, but part of the problem is a disconnect between urbanism and climate. Urbanists tend to have other things they are focused on, like equity.

Ultimately we have to build more connected communities, and we must build more housing near services. /10

But we *must* start taking the housing-transportation nexus into account in our climate plans. We have 10 years to avoid the worst effects of climate change, and that's less than one building cycle.

We can't keep doing this the wrong way. /11

. @triofrancos @aldatweets I'd love to hear your thoughts on my analysis of this failure to connect housing and climate in the draft Dem Platform, and if I've missed anything.