Study: Renters’ Rise Extends Beyond Cities to the Suburbs
New York — In the American imagination, suburbs are places to buy a house and put down roots. But a growing percentage of suburbanites rent, according to a new study. About 29 percent of metropolitan-area suburbanites were renters in 2014, up from 23 percent in 2006, according to a report released Tuesday by New York University’s Furman Center real estate think tank and the bank Capital One. The finances of home ownership since the...
Schedule Rules Prove Difficult to Implement
San Francisco — San Francisco, the country’s premier laboratory for new Internet services, is also used to innovating in municipal regulation. But in its latest experiment, it’s starting to find that legislating good corporate behavior isn’t as easy as pressing a button on your smartphone. In July, the city started implementing a first-in-the-nation law aimed at curtailing the trend toward “just-in-time” scheduling, where managers...
Slow and Steady: Model T’s Cross-Country Trip
After 34 days and 3,600 miles across America on dirt roads, the Model T that recreated Edsel Ford’s 1915 road trip from Detroit to San Francisco reached its destination earlier this month. “Seeing America in the slow lane turns out to be amazingly pleasant,” said Mark Gessler, president of the Historic Vehicle Association. “I was surprised how comfortable a 100-year-old car actually is.” Virtually identical to the 1915 Model T Touring...
Living in Shipping Container One Man’s Solution to Housing
Luke Iseman has figured out how to afford the San Francisco Bay area. He lives in a shipping container. The Wharton School graduate’s 160-square-foot box has a camp stove and a shower made of old boat hulls. It’s one of 11 miniature residences inside a warehouse he leases across the Bay Bridge from the city, where his tenants share communal toilets and a sense of adventure. Legal? No, but he’s eluded code enforcers who rousted what he...
Keeping an Eye on Mom and Dad
San Francisco — Each time 81-year-old Bill Dworsky or his 80-year-old wife Dorothy opens the refrigerator, closes the bathroom door or lifts the lid on a pill container, tiny sensors in their San Francisco home make notes on a digital logbook. The couple’s 53-year-old son, Phil, checks it daily on his smartphone. If there’s no activity during a designated time, the younger Dworsky gets an automated email, so he can decide whether to...
