Follow this tag to curate your own personalized Activity Stream and email alerts.
The homes of wealthy Americans are responsible for about 25% more greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions than low-income households, according to a new study released Monday by University of Michigan researchers. — Smart Cities Dive
The study, writes Smart Cities Dive's Jason Plautz, found the GHG impact of U.S. homes is lowest in Western states and highest in Central states, and the carbon footprint of wealthy neighborhoods can be as much as 15 times higher than lower-income areas. CoreLogic, a database of tax assessor... View full entry
As the tech companies Uber, Airbnb, Lyft and Pinterest prepare to go public, thousands more instant millionaires are expected to flood the market in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. All the while, the middle class and working poor are scrambling for shelter. — The Guardian
Homelessness in America has reached crisis levels and I am determined to do everything in my power to fix the problem as long as it doesn’t involve changing zoning laws or my ability to drive alone to work or, well, changing anything, really. I’m more than happy to give a hungry man a sandwich once a year and then brag to my friends about it as long as he doesn’t sit down anywhere in my line of sight to eat it. Same goes for hungry women because I’m also a feminist. — mcsweeneys.net
A superb piece satirizing the homelessness and housing crises by McSweeney's writer Homa Mojtabai. From a privileged and entitled point of view, Mojtabai highlights extreme issues on how problems are being "solved". This is of course an exaggeration—but by how much? View full entry
Tina Lam and Michael Cheng snatched up Presidio Terrace — the block-long, private oval street lined by 35 megamillion-dollar mansions — for $90,000 and change in a city-run auction stemming from an unpaid tax bill. They outlasted several other bidders.
Now they’re looking to cash in — maybe by charging the residents of those mansions to park on their own private street.
— San Francisco Chronicle
When the annual $14 city tax bill for the street on Presidio Terrace went unpaid for a little over thirty years, the frustrated municipality held an auction to recoup its lost monies. A savvy couple who live in the decidedly less swanky South Bay snapped it up and now are causing all of the... View full entry
Trump is President, the climate is chaos, and the wealth gap is starting to qualify as its own national canyon. So if you've got vats of money and are afraid of all the people who don't, what do you do? Build doomsday architecture to survive the collapse of society! In this piece for The New... View full entry
This windswept outcropping, peering over the Atlantic, was a Gilded Age haven where the wealthy built mansions known by their names, not addresses: The Elms, Marble House and, most famous of all, The Breakers...
Newport has cared deeply about appearances ever since.
So when large steel beams rose high in the air between the city’s most storied thoroughfares, framing a mansion that will have an unusual, many-sided shape and a flat roof, neighborhood residents and observers were aghast.
— the New York Times
More on the architecture of the mega-rich:Having bazillions of dollars helpsIt's official: $250M mega penthouse in Stern-designed 220 Central Park South tower is now NYC's priciest address$500,000,000 spec house under construction in LA View full entry
London’s traditional elite, such as lawyers, architects and academics, are being pushed out of their enclaves in Mayfair, Chelsea and Hampstead by an influx of global super rich investors, causing a chain reaction of gentrification across the capital, according to research by the London School of Economics.
An influx of ultra-high-net worth overseas buyers is leading the old elite to sell up and move from London’s most exclusive postcodes and buy in areas they previously considered undesirable
— the Guardian
While it may be hard to sympathise with the "traditional elite", these displacements set off a chain-reaction, as the affluent middle class moves into neighbourhoods that were once working class. In turn, lower-income Londoners are forced out of the city all together.For more on the... View full entry
When it comes to cleanliness, common sense suggest wealthier homes are at an advantage. Live-in maids and cleaning services should, ostensibly, help create antiseptic, exclusively human enclosures. Yet new research shows there’s a correlation between socioeconomics and the presence of bugs in... View full entry
By living above 800 feet, Estis and Enkin are two members of an unexpectedly exclusive group in Manhattan. In my estimation, no more than 40 people currently live above that line, scattered among just three buildings...
As my elevator descended and my ears popped, it occurred to me that I would almost certainly never take in such a view again. And in fact, maybe nobody will, if these apartments wind up becoming empty investments.
— The New York Times
In this elegantly observed and exquisitely written piece, Jon Ronson not only takes in the view of Manhattan at 800+ feet with visits to Trump World Tower, One57 and 8 Spruce Street, but looks toward the future of a nation divided by an increasingly intractable wealth gap.Real estate of the... View full entry
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
"Geographic segregation dovetails with the growing economic spread between the top 20 percent and the bottom 80 percent: The top quintile is, in effect, disengaging from everyone with lower incomes."In related news:Urban fingerprints reveal a city's fundamental character and compositionBuying... View full entry
The [Taylor] family is part of a small subset of affluent homeowners who home-school their kids—but not for typical reasons of wanting to provide religious instruction or because they don’t like the public schools nearby. Instead, they say they can create their own optimal learning environments by buying or building homes in which almost every room is a classroom. [...]
“When you do a house from the ground up, you do it for how your family lives. Home schooling for us is a lifestyle”
— wsj.com
More at the intersection of space and education:Are English universities picking up "American habits" as campus construction booms?Building Design from the Inside Out: RISD’s Interior Architecture departmentChinese Colleges Are Trying to Look Like the Ivy LeagueTod Williams Billie Tsien... View full entry
"Concerned about illicit money flowing into luxury real estate, the Treasury Department said Wednesday that it would begin identifying and tracking secret buyers of high-end properties."
"The initiative is part of a broader federal effort to increase the focus on money laundering in real estate."
— The New York Times
"Nobody really reads books," Niami says, "so I'm just going to fill the shelves with white books, for looks." Stepping past the nightclub's outdoor lounge area where circular banquettes will seem to float next to a two-story waterfall, he says: "I really think that this house is going to do a lot for L.A. Anybody who lives in the area is going to be proud to be near it." — DETAILS
Go ahead and hate! About half of the tennis court had to be built on pilings to account for the land's contours. This niche will have a covered viewing area and a fire pit.The infinity pool for the guesthouse, which, when built, will be 5,000 square feet itself.The motor court and the main... View full entry
Among this new breed of towers, design elements not directly tied to profit are often downgraded or eliminated as overall costs climb. [...] With today’s mathematically generated super-spires, it’s best to paraphrase Mae West: “Architecture has nothing to do with it.”
[...] much as the new super-tall New York condos may serve that same general purpose, these are no works of art. If, as Goethe posited, architecture is frozen music, then these buildings are vertical money.
— The New York Review of Books
Related: Too Rich, Too Thin, Too Tall? View full entry
To put that number in perspective, these folks make up the upper 0.002 percent of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants and hold over $20 trillion of its money. — 6sqft
Ever wondered where the world’s richest live? Here's a map (and a list) of the top 20 nations hosting the globe's 173,000 folks that have more than $30 million in net assets. View full entry