"Priced Out: Big Cities Are Becoming Too Costly For Lower-Income Residents"

Trulia | April 28, 2016

Can’t afford housing in your expensive city? The solution for many is to move out.

America’s 10 most expensive metros have a lot going for them. They’re big. They have plenty of jobs. And for many residents, they’re desirable places to live.
But there’s a catch: the cost of housing has become so expensive that lower-income households are getting squeezed out.

Rents and home prices have soared in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, Orange County, Calif., San Francisco, San Jose and Washington, D.C.

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"San Francisco is requiring solar panels on all new buildings. But here’s a much greener idea."

Vox | April 20, 2016

One of the greenest, most environmentally friendly moves that big cities like New York or San Francisco or Chicago can make is to increase housing density and allow more people to live in them. And yet, bizarrely, few people seem to think of this as an “environmental” policy.

But it is! And it’s hugely significant. In fact, we can illustrate just how significant by taking a closer look at San Francisco’s new solar law.

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"These architects designed and built a concept for building affordable homes over existing parking lots"

Contemporist | April 20, 2016

British firm, Bill Dunster Architects, have always been committed to low carbon building and development. Now, their latest design named ZEDpod, is an idea to build affordable homes over existing parking lots.

In places where there are existing parking lots, the ZEDpod can easily be installed, and because it’s a pre-fabricated design, a pop-up village could be installed in a weekend.

The ZEDpod is zero-carbon, zero-waste, and would have no annual energy bills. They’ve integrated solar photo-voltaic panels (ZED Roof), which in enough numbers can create a solar farm without the loss of agricultural land, allowing enough power to be generated to operate the homes and charge electric cars, bikes, etc.

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"What Makes Housing Too Expensive"

BloombergView | April 18, 2016

The U.S. has two big housing affordability problems. They’re related — and solving the first would go some way toward solving the second. But they’re not the same, and it’s important to understand that.

The first problem is that some coastal metropolitan areas in the U.S. are generating lots of good jobs but aren’t building enough housing to keep up with employment growth.

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"A Closet-Sized Life: Shocking Findings Of SRO Families Report"

Hoodline | April 14, 2016

FROM NOV 25, 2015

Imagine living with all of your belongings and family members in a room in which you can nearly touch both walls with your arms outstretched.

That’s how many families get by in the city, and the vast majority—88 percent— are headed by the working poor who have jobs in industries such as hotels, sales, construction and restaurants. That’s just one of the findings in the 2015 SRO Families Report, published by the SRO Families Collaborative.

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