Given the ever-increasing cost of living in the United States, low-wage working families and individuals are continually unable to meet and maintain the bare necessities of life. This is especially true in New York City, where a working adult with 2 kids needs to make $53 an hour just to get by and afford basic …
Read more “The True Cost of Living in NYC: What’s Needed to Survive in 2022”
Mortgage calculators are a great way to figure out if you can afford a home, but depending on which one you use, some may be more accurate than others. Most calculators, like those from real estate giants Zillow and Redfin, show you a pretty decent estimate of your potential monthly payments, but they don’t exactly …
Read more “First-Time Homebuyer? Be Careful of Mortgage Calculators”
As human demands for convenience increase, so too does our appetite for physical space. And space, regardless of how much we think we have, is disappearing at an alarming rate, showing a human appetite that is not only irresponsible, but one that is entirely unsustainable and inherently selfish. Some of our choices, like development and …
Read more “Physical Space is Disappearing – That Should Worry Us More”
Homelessness is a complex issue and there isn’t one singular piece of data that can effectively tell the entire story of homelessness and the greater need for housing in the United States. However, there are several data sources and tools that can be used at the community level to address the issue and some, like …
So there I was, doing my thing, running some work errands, trying to keep things in order when all of the sudden, I receive a text message from a stranger. Would you sell 111 Pacific Ave or do you want to just keep it? If you’d rather not text, just say END A little taken …
Read more “A House Flipper Texted Me Using “Skip Tracing” – Here’s What I Found Out”
Each year, over 630,000 people leave state and federal prisons and return home. And whether they serve a a couple months or a multi-year sentence, 93% will eventually be released and asked to reintegrate back into their community. But, when they do finally return home, it’s not exactly an ideal situation. In most cases, they’ll …
Move to the city they said, bring your dogs they said! Welp, I did. And while I wouldn’t give up my dogs for anything, I’ve come to the conclusion that city life just doesn’t work for everyone, especially if you’re a dog owner. But let me be clear, it’s not that city life is bad …
“Biodiver City” is a proposed project by the Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to create a small chain of biodiverse island habitats off the northwest coast of Malaysia to alleviate overcrowding on the country’s mainland. The Malaysian island of Penang, typically known for its beaches and food, is set to host this new project, where three …
Just before Juneteenth, in a very extraordinary moment for the Nation, the White House recognized “exclusionary zoning” and its effect on racial discrimination in the housing market for the first time. In the White House blog (yes they have a blog), authors Cecilia Rouse, Jared Bernstein, Helen Knudsen, and Jeffery Zhang wrote about Juneteenth — …
Read more “White House Recognizes the Need for Zoning Reform”
Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America Tool Review Between 1935 and 1940, in the midst of the Great Depression recovery, the Home Owner’s Loan Corporation (HOLC) used data from local real estate appraisers, developers, and lenders to assign housing “grades” to residential neighborhoods across the U.S. in an effort to show a particular neighborhood’s …
Read more “Mapping Inequality: Redlining in New Deal America”