After 2016 smashed records for the planet’s biggest deals, this year was not far behind. There was a noticeable flurry of activity in the aptly named Golden State of California where the rich and famous – and we’re talking the likes of Beyoncé and Jay Z – flocked to snap up a piece of prime LA luxury. But three of the most expensive homes were all inside one development in Hong Kong. — The Spaces

How do you raise the standard of living in the poorest neighborhoods in the country?

That’s what community developers, typically nonprofits that build and finance affordable housing, have tried to do over the last few decades. And yet [...] many of these communities remain stuck in poverty. [...]

This problem has stumped community developers for decades. But two local nonprofits think they’ve hit on something: They’ve created a private equity fund. — marketplace.org

Swiss francs, like most world currencies, have long featured notable faces from the past. But now, each beautiful note is designed around an abstract theme related to Switzerland. For the 10-franc note, instead of the retired portrait of the controversial genius Le Corbusier, the theme focuses on Switzerland’s organizational talent – expressed by time. — Le News

Entering 2017, construction forecasters were quite optimistic about the near-term outlook for the industry. [...]

However, as of the mid-year 2017 update, the grounds of this euphoria are evaporating. [...] key elements of the Trump administration’s legislative agenda have made almost no progress. [...]

As a result, the AIA Consensus Construction Forecast panel is predicting slower growth for the construction industry for the remainder of 2017 and through 2018. — aia.org

[Hadid] bequeathed a lump sum of £500,000 to her business partner Patrik Schumacher. Hadid also left a total of £1.7m to four nieces and nephews, as well as her brother Haytham Hadid, whose share was £500,000 [...] Her will, obtained by the Architects’ Journal, shows that the net value of her estate was £67,249,458. The calculation was filed in the high court dated 14 December 2016 [...] The will shows Hadid is leaving her architecture practice, of which she was the sole owner, in trust. — The Guardian

Faraday Future’s future is looking bleaker.

After the electric car start-up failed to pay millions of dollars in bills, its contractor Monday halted work on Faraday’s $1-billion North Las Vegas, Nev., car factory. [...] The contractor is Aecom, the Los Angeles-based engineering giant. [...]

Faraday failed to pay $21 million due to Aecom in September and owed $25 million in October and $12 million in November, according to Aecom. — latimes.com

There is a city which is suffering a worse property bubble than Sydney, whose residents are more priced-out than Londoners, and where there is a greater divide between the housing haves and have-nots than even San Francisco.

That city is Vancouver, and in response to these mounting challenges, the west-coast Canadian metropolis recently imposed an extraordinary new tax on foreign buyers – whose impact is now being watched closely by other cities grappling with bloated property markets. — theguardian.com

After a strong 2015, there is a growing sense that the construction industry expansion will be more tempered over the next eighteen months. [...]

The American Institute of Architects’ (AIA) semi-annual Consensus Construction Forecast, a survey of the nation’s leading construction forecasters, is projecting that spending will increase just less than six percent for 2016, with next year’s projection being an additional 5.6% gain. — AIA

For years now, people have been talking about the insulated world of the top 1 percent of Americans, but the top 20 percent of the income distribution is also steadily separating itself — by geography and by education as well as by income.

This self-segregation of a privileged fifth of the population is changing the American social order and the American political system, creating a self-perpetuating class at the top, which is ever more difficult to break into. — the New York Times