"Rental Competition Fierce in S.F.’s Market"

San Francisco Chronicle | May 9, 2012

Michael Austin and Emily Morrison aren’t highly paid tech workers. He’s an actor with a day job as an administrative assistant; she’s an arts teacher at CalShakes. Newly engaged, they’ve been seeking an apartment in San Francisco to move into together.

“We started combing Craigslist, and when we filtered by the neighborhoods we want and our maximum price of $2,000 for a two-bedroom, there is almost nothing,” Austin said. “It was just shocking to me.”

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"Renting Prosperity"

The Wall Street Journal | May 4, 2012

Americans are getting used to the idea of renting the good life, from cars to couture to homes. Daniel Gross explores our shift from a nation of owners to an economy permanently on the move—and how it will lead to the next boom.

“The Great Gatsby,” the pre-eminent American novel of financial ambition, overextension and downfall, offers a revealing vignette about the great American obsession: real estate. The narrator, Nick Carraway, can’t afford to buy in the rarefied Long Island world inhabited by Gatsby, and by Tom and Daisy Buchanan. But he can afford to rent. “When a young man at the office suggested that we take a house together in a commuting town, it sounded like a great idea. He found the house, a weather-beaten cardboard bungalow at eighty a month, but at the last minute the firm ordered him to Washington, and I went out to the country alone,” he notes. “I had a view of the water, a partial view of my neighbor’s lawn, and the consoling proximity of millionaires—all for eighty dollars a month.”

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"How Creativity Works in Cities"

The Atlantic Cities | May 2, 2012

The human imagination is a bewildering process. How the brain comes up with great ideas is mysteriously complex. 

Jonah Lehrer’s ambitious new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works takes a fascinating dive into the world of creativity and how it all works, not to mention devoting a chapter entirely to cities. 

Lehrer recently took some time to chat with Atlantic Cities and expand on his ideas concerning the nexus of creativity and cities.

You title your chapter on cities “Urban Friction”and you go on to talk about the pioneering work of Geoffrey West, Luis Bettencourt, and their colleagues at the Santa Fe Institute on “urban metabolism.” How is it that cities come to stimulate and enhance our creativity abilities?

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"Allure of City Itself a Factor in S.F.’s Tech Boom"

San Francisco Chronicle | April 15, 2012

Here’s one way San Francisco’s current tech boom differs from the dot-com era: This one is creating many more jobs.

The city will have 28 percent more technology positions by the end of this year than it had at its 2000 peak, according to a new analysis of state employment data by real estate consultant Jones Lang LaSalle. Technology is San Francisco’s fastest-growing sector, and now occupies more office space in the city than any other industry.

The city will have 44,305 tech jobs by the end of the year, up from 36,921 last year and 34,442 in 2000, according to the analysis. The estimates are based on data from the California Employment Development Department, Moody’s Economy.com and Jones Lang LaSalle.

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"The Disconnect: Why are so many Americans living by themselves?"

The New Yorker | April 6, 2012

As reliably as autumn brings Orion to the night sky, spring each year sends a curious constellation to the multiplex: a minor cluster of romantic comedies and the couples who traipse through them, searching for love. These tend not to be people who have normal problems. She is poised, wildly succesSFul in an ulcer-making job, lonely. He is sensitive, creative, equipped with a mysteriously vast apartment, unattached. For all these resources, nothing can allay their solitude. He tries to cook. She collects old LPs. He seeks love in the arms of chatty narcissists. She pulls all-nighters in her office. Eventually, her best friend, who may also be her divorced mother, tells her that something needs to change: she’s squandering her golden years; she’ll end up forlorn and alone. Across town, his stout buddy, who is married to someone named Debbee, rhapsodizes about the pleasures of cohabitation. None of this is helpful.

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"Autos Losing Allure for Young Adults, Study Shows"

San Francisco Chronicle | April 6, 2012

Car culture and the romance of the open road are losing their allure among young Americans, according to a report released Thursday by a public interest group.

Teens and young adults drive substantially fewer miles per year than their predecessors did, and many don’t even bother to get a driver’s license. They increasingly rely on their feet, their bikes or mass transit, according to the “Transportation and the New Generation” report.

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"The Simple Math That Can Save Cities From Bankruptcy"

The Atlantic Cities | March 30, 2012

In the 1950s, the five-story brick Asheville Hotel in Asheville, North Carolina, started to fall into decline, presaging what would happen to most of the city’s downtown over the next couple of decades. A department store moved into the ground floor while everything above it sat empty. Then the building got one of those ugly metal facades that’s designed to distract from the fact that all the windows are boarded up.

Twenty years later, the local real-estate developer Public Interest Projects set its sights on the building for a mixed-use retail and residential property. Local bankers and businessmen said they were foolish.

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"Top and Bottom Markets March 2012 Study"

ReisReports.com | March 15, 2012

Here are the top and bottom markets by rent growth during 4Q2011 across Apartment, Office and Retail sectors based on data for our 82 primary metros (80 for Retail). Reis tracks 200 markets across the nation including 2,100 submarkets.

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"Bay Area Developer Unveils Compact Living Concept"

CBS San Francisco | March 9, 2012

A Bay Area developer brings compact living to a whole new level. His “Smart Spaces” are single furnished apartments that are 160 square feet. Elizabeth Cook reports.

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