Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
There is no state in the union where a full-time, minimum-wage worker can afford to rent a one-bedroom apartment for less than 30 percent of his paycheck (which is a standard measure of housing affordability). That’s the depressing takeaway from a new report by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition. The paper includes this map tallying…
[if lte IE 9]>< ![endif] Google Publisher Tags Google Analytics End Google Analytics /.off-canvas TEMPLATE T1 BODY The Blackstone Group LP, the biggest landlord in the country with tens of thousands of residential units, is investing in Oakland, becoming the largest real estate player yet to arrive in the burgeoning city. New York-based Blackstone (NYSE:BX)…
Photo Mayor Bill de Blasio presented his housing plan in Brooklyn on Monday. Credit Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times New York City will commit $8.2 billion in public funds to a 10-year housing plan that could transform the cityscape from Cypress Hills in Brooklyn to the shores of the Harlem River, while providing affordable homes…
Photo Richard Zawisny is a co-owner of Eagle Provisions, in South Park Slope, Brooklyn. Credit Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times To hear some mourners of New York’s late, great nostalgia-filled haunts tell it, the soul of the city is crumbling. With every upward tick in property values, the eternal lament goes, another rapacious landlord muscles…
Updated Oct. 20, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET This week, game players and enthusiasts from 40 countries will descend upon Las Vegas to compete in the Monopoly World Championship, held roughly every four years. The winner of the Hasbro Inc. HAS 0.48 % -sponsored tournament will take home $20,580 — the precise sum stashed in the…
Peaceful protesters have been pleading their case against police brutality for months in Baltimore. I kept hearing people say, “Baltimore is not Ferguson,” meaning, I suppose, that we do not repress our issues of wealth and racial disparity or deny them. Baltimore, after all, has been a city in recovery for half a century now….
I was asleep when I heard the door rattle against the frame. My eyes flashed open and I sprung upright in my under-desk sleep space. Was it all over? Had someone come to work early? I peered over my desk, afraid of what I might see. The morning sun burned through the chicken-scratch graffiti of…
Hundreds of luxury apartments in the heart of Queens Plaza have just become available for rent. The World Wide Group–which has constructed a 421-unit, 21 story building at Queens Plaza North (24th Street)– has just listed the high-end apartments. Tenants will be able to move in as early as July. The apartments are packed with amenities—which…
Julie Zeveloff/Business InsiderNew York’s hottest, most exclusive neighborhood is Rikers Island. The most expensive neighborhood in New York City isn’t TriBeCa or the West Village. It’s Rikers Island. The city spent an average of $167,000 per inmate on its jail system in 2012, according to a new report from the city’s Independent Budget Office. That’s nearly…
In many cities around the world—New York, San Francisco, London—most people find the rent to be unaffordable. Buying is out of the question. Perhaps that is because your city’s housing stock is now just another fungible financial instrument, like pork bellies. You, the middle class resident of a major urban area, may have complained at…