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☆ A Huge Number of Homeowners Have Mortgage Rates Too Good to Give Up
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-15 | by ( Emily Badger | Francesca Paris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

Indeed, according to new research from economists at the Federal Housing Finance Agency, this lock-in effect is responsible for about 1.3 million fewer home sales in America during the run-up in rates from the spring of 2022 through the end of 2023. That’s a startling number in a nation where around five million homes sell annually in more normal times — most of those to people who already own. These locked-in households haven’t relocated for better jobs or higher pay, and haven’t been able to downsize or acquire more space. They also haven’t opened up homes for first-time buyers. And that’s driven up prices and gummed up the market.

Persons: That’s, haven’t Organizations: Federal Housing Finance Agency Locations: America

☆ We Tried to Create a Diverse College Class Without Affirmative Action
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-09 | by ( Aatish Bhatia | Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +22 min

If selective colleges admitted students by score alone — using, say, a 1300 cutoff — the pool would not be very diverse, by race or class. If selective colleges admitted students by score alone — using, say, a 1300 cutoff — the pool would not be very diverse, by race or class. To create a more diverse class, colleges could … But admissions preferences based on race are no longer legal. We Tried to Create a Diverse College Class Without Affirmative Action Now you can try it, too. In our affirmative action model, just 6 percent of admitted students come from the bottom quartile of the income distribution.

Persons: …, Sean Reardon, Demetra, NaN %, NaN, It’s, “, ”, Richard Kahlenberg, we’re, didn’t, “ We’re, Zack Mabel, we’ve, —, it’s, Richard Sander, Jill Orcutt, Johns Hopkins, they’ll Organizations: Stanford, Penn, Here’s, Colleges, Progressive Policy Institute, White Asian, American Association of Collegiate, University of California Locations: America, Here’s, Alaska, Georgetown, U.C . Merced

☆ The Absurd Problem of New York City Trash
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-02 | by ( Emily Badger | Larry Buchanan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +30 min

In New York City, trash has no dedicated space all its own. The Absurd Problem of New York City Trash And the Trade-Offs Required to Fix ItConsider the ubiquitous New York trash bag. The prospect has prompted much snickering: New York’s big idea to clean up trash is to … put it in trash bins? New York City Municipal Archives1913: A century in the past, but the same problems as today. New York City Municipal ArchivesBut those cans overflowed to horrifying effect during the 10-day strike:When New York streets resembled landfills.

Persons: …, that’s, ” Anthony Crispino, “, ” Cole Stallard, Stallard, Gerard Koeppel, Oscar, Neal Boenzi, New York Times Garbage, Larry C, Morris, Meyer Liebowitz, Rudy Giuliani, ‘, ”, Norman Steisel, Eric Adams, Jessica Tisch, Tisch, Hiroko Masuike, Ms, there’s, It’s, ” Harry Nespoli, workarounds, Martin Melosi, Clare Miflin, Miflin, don’t, Benjamin Miller, Martin Robertson, ” Mr, Robertson Organizations: Sanitation Department, New York City Municipal, New York Times, York’s Sanitation Department, Department, York City Municipal, District of Columbia Department of Public, New York, New York Public, The New York Times, City Hall, Avenue, West 22nd, West, Eighth, 21st, West 21st, Bronx Manhattan Queens, Financial, Center, Zero Locations: New York City, stairwells, York, New York, York City, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Washington, Houston, what’s, Chelsea, Erie, Manhattan, ”, New Yorkers, Staten Island, New, East, Bronx, Bronx Manhattan Queens Brooklyn Staten Island, European, Harlem, New York . New York, Relatedly, Brooklyn

☆ Cities Foster Serendipity. But Can They Do It When Workers Are at Home?
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Emily Badger | More About Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is a thing that happens in cities — that we think happens in cities — when people with lots of different ideas bump into each other on the sidewalk, or at the bar or the grocery store or the gym. The urbanist icon Jane Jacobs identified these collisions as central to what makes cities dynamic. “The chance encounters facilitated by cities,” the economist Edward Glaeser has written, “are the stuff of human progress.”Remote work has, well, blurred this picture. How do workers spill their knowledge when they’ve moved to Montana, or the exurbs? “It’s a trying time, certainly, for my view of the world,” said Enrico Moretti, a Berkeley economist who has written extensively about why it’s good for workers, companies and the economy when people cluster in particular cities.

Persons: Jane Jacobs, “, Edward Glaeser, they’ve, ”, Enrico Moretti Locations: —, Montana, Berkeley

☆ The Ground-Floor Window Into What’s Ailing Downtowns
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-04 | by ( Emily Badger | More About Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Downtown San Francisco’s office buildings have been quieted by some of the highest vacancy rates and slowest return-to-office trends in the country. Around nearly every corner, they’re seeking someone to lease 822 square feet of former coffee shop, or 5,446 square feet of empty bakery, or 12,632 square feet of what was once a Walgreens. Like much of the office space above it, the ground floor will probably have to be reimagined in San Francisco’s business district and other downtowns that have long taken for granted a captive audience of commuting consumers. Because who wants to return downtown when its most visible spaces have been darkened, boarded up and papered over? “And only one step above that are these sad stickers with happy smiling people on them.”

Persons: ”, Conrad Kickert Organizations: Downtown, Verizon, Walgreens, University, Buffalo Locations: Francisco’s

☆ American Cities Have a Conversion Problem, and It’s Not Just Offices
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-01 | by ( Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

There is an aging office building on Water Street in Lower Manhattan where it would make all the sense in the world to create apartments. The 31-story building, once the headquarters of A.I.G., has windows all around and a shape suited to extra corner units. Right across the street, one office not so different from this one has already been turned into housing, and another is on the way. But 175 Water Street has a hitch: Offices in the financial district are spared some zoning rules that make conversion hard — so long as they were built before 1977. But that idea died in the State Legislature this spring, along with the rest of the governor’s housing agenda.

Persons: “, ”, Richard Coles, Eric Adams, Kathy Hochul, Coles, Vanbarton Organizations: Vanbarton, Gov, State Legislature Locations: Lower Manhattan, A.I.G, New York, State

☆ The Uneven Effect of Remote Work, in One List
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-26 | by ( Emily Badger | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The list also helps explain why the pandemic has left more lasting scars in some parts of the country — and in certain downtowns — than others. In some cities, the economy is much more heavily skewed toward occupations at the top of the list. And downtown San Francisco and Washington have remained particularly hobbled by the pandemic (San Jose has less of a downtown to speak of). The distinction isn’t just about which places have more white-collar workers. Even certain kinds of white-collar work (say, computer programming) are more likely to be remote than others (civil engineering).

Organizations: Survey Locations: San Jose, San Francisco, Washington, Jose

In recent years, well-paid and college-educated Americans have shed major cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington for places like Philadelphia or Birmingham, Ala.Emily Badger, who writes about cities and urban policy for The Upshot at The New York Times, explains what is driving the change, and what it means for the future of the American city.

Persons: Emily Badger Organizations: The New York Times Locations: New York, San Francisco, Washington, Philadelphia, Birmingham, Ala, American

☆ A Nascent ‘YIMBY’ Movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( David Leonhardt | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

“My living room is bigger than any apartment in New York I ever had,” said Eduardo Lerro, 45, a former public-school teacher who now lives in Minneapolis and works as a consultant. In many ways, the trend is a healthy one. Americans are responding rationally to financial incentives and building lives for themselves in new places. It helps that more cities have added amenities once associated with the Northeast and the West Coast. “There’s good Indian and Thai food to be found in more places.

In midsized metros Metros with 250,000 to one million residents. An Emerging Divide Mobility has risen for college-educated workers, even as it has fallen for workers without a degree. College-educated workers leaving the most expensive parts of the country are also not spreading out equally everywhere — or even going to parts of the country that are struggling. Net migration among college graduates Loss Gain Among the 12 most expensive metros, net college migration has generally declined or turned negative. “Consumer cities,” as she puts it, are increasingly replacing “producer cities” as the places where college graduates want to live.

So You Want to Turn an Office Building Into a Home? There’s an appealing simplicity to the idea of converting office buildings into housing. Basically, they did this:How to Turn a 26-story Office Building Into a 30-story Apartment Building Cut a hole through 23 floors of the building. How to Turn a 26-story Office Building Into a 30-story Apartment Building Cut a hole through 23 floors of the building. That could change with tax abatements and subsidy programs, or if outdated office buildings lose so much value that the cost of acquiring them plummets.

To capture this moment of adaptation, we contacted 200 New York Times readers who had sent us photographs of their pandemic lives at the end of 2020 and asked them to share a new photo reflecting what normal means two years later. Nearly the same share, 42 percent, said the pandemic had changed their lives in lasting and significant ways. Just 12 percent said the pandemic never changed much: “I didn’t give up anything,” one respondent said. What is one thing about your life that the pandemic has changed in a lasting way? Together, the photos collected below capture a kind of then-and-now of pandemic times, when many are still figuring out what comes next.

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