2025
"Bay Area locals are flocking to a sandwich shop for its hard-to-find ice cream"
Berkeley’s Roast and Toast has gained a large fan base for its rare stretchy ice cream
...More"Young people are leaving S.F. Can an obscure change to the city’s code help bring them back?"
Four years ago, Josh Masimore was living alone in Texas. And he was miserable. Lonely and isolated in his one-bedroom apartment, he craved community, but didn’t know how or where to find it.
...More"Berkeley will allow apartments to be built throughout the flats"
A last-minute change allowed even denser construction than originally proposed in the city where single-family zoning was invented.
...More"Does Building Light-Touch Density Housing Lower Single-Family Home Values? Evidence from Seattle, WA and Charlotte, NC"
Opponents of Light-touch Density (LTD) infill argue that it will lead to outright home price declines or, at the very least, slower home price appreciation (HPA). However, evidence from Charlotte and Seattle shows that the construction of LTD housing—such as duplexes and townhomes—does not adversely impact HPA of single-family detached (SFD) homes in the LTD infill neighborhoods compared to the HPA of SFD homes in SFD-only neighborhoods. In both cities, LTD development added tens of thousands of new homes while having no adverse effect on the HPA of adjacent SFD properties.
...More"Berkeley opens 39 units of supportive housing for formerly homeless residents"
First approved in 2020, the building on University Avenue, near Acton Street, includes support staff on site 24/7.
...More"America’s Healthiest City Is A Vibrant West Coast Destination With 256 Sunny Days And Dozens Of Parks"
Wellness is a way of life, and Berkeley, California, is proof that, with Niche.com crowning it the healthiest city in America in 2025. Located in Alameda County, just under 14 miles east of San Francisco, Berkeley earned its title based on its residents’ overall health, alcohol and tobacco use, obesity rates, and access to health care, including doctors, hospitals, and gyms.
...More"Synergy Modular alleges breach of contract in Berkeley apartment project"
Most modular units are built out in a warehouse before being assembled like building blocks on site, which proponents say can save time and money. Some critics say the process is highly fallible and requires extreme precision.
...More"A new era of single-stair apartment buildings is coming to Denver and other Colorado cities"
The design will be allowed again for smaller projects, as long as developers include other safety features.
...More"The numbers don’t work in Cambridge"
One perverse way to think about development is that it is a tool to transfer costs away from people who don’t want to pay for stuff to people who don’t know they’re paying for stuff.
...More"‘The numbers should work, and they just don’t’: Is Cambridge’s affordable housing rule backfiring?"
Cambridge is one of many local communities that require most new housing developments to include units set aside at below-market rents — in its case, 20 percent of the building, which is among the highest rates in Greater Boston — with the intention of creating more affordable homes in a city that is starved for them…..Put another way, a policy aimed at generating affordable housing may actually be preventing it.
...More
