People everywhere are stuck inside waiting out the Covid-19 pandemic — but of course, some are more cramped than others. A new study by RentCafé offers insight into where American renters have the least amount of personal space. To determine the average number of square feet available to renters in the 100 largest U.S. cities, the researchers divided the average size of a rental apartment by the average number of renters per household in each city. (Apartment sizes were calculated using data from Yardi Matrix , a business tool used by real estate professionals, which is restricted to buildings with 50 or more units.) Though it didn’t take rental units in smaller buildings into account, the study gives us a pretty good idea of where renters can expect to live in tighter quarters. Household size was derived from U.S. census data, and for the purposes of the study, New York City’s boroughs were regarded as individual “cities.” If you thought cities with the smallest average … [Read more...]

On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” host Bill Maher slammed the “progressophobia” on the left on issues of race, gender, and sexuality and said that the refusal to acknowledge progress is harmful because “progress, and hope that we can achieve it, is the product we’re selling, and having a warped view of reality leads to policies that are warped.” After playing a clip of President Joe Biden talking about ads featuring mixed-race couples Maher said, “Uncle Joe is pointing liberals towards something they need to be more aware of: They have a bad case of progressophobia. That’s the phrase coined by Steven Pinker to describe a brain disorder that strikes liberals and makes them incapable of recognizing progress. It’s like situational blindness, only what you can’t see is that your dorm in 2021 is better than the South before the Civil War. If you think America is more racist now than ever, more sexist than before women could vote, and more homophobic than when blowjobs were a … [Read more...]

A resurgent virus killing again. A tireless health expert facing hostility to mask-wearing. Local officials delivering mixed messages on safety and being caught not practicing what they preach. The second wave of Spanish influenza in December 1918 and January 1919 resembles the most recent surge of COVID-19 in some ways. San Franciscans back then were weary after an autumn of restrictions that were tougher than in most other cities — though they did appear to help reduce cases and deaths. The driving force behind the push to make masks mandatory a second time was San Francisco’s top health official, who had also helped the city stave off the bubonic plague after the 1906 earthquake. The fight to restore a mask ordinance was an intense one. It included hundreds of arrests, a bomb, an Anti-Mask League and weeks of heated debate among elected officials and the public. Even as a large San Francisco Chronicle headline Nov. 2, 1918, proclaimed, “Continued masking holds influenza in … [Read more...]

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Sometimes Hannah Drake stands at the banks of the Ohio River in Louisville, closes her eyes and tries to conjure the faces and stories of enslaved women, men and children who stood on that same land. What were they dreaming of as they looked across the river — just a mile wide in some places, far less in others — to Indiana, toward freedom? How many made the attempt to escape by disguising themselves and hiding away on a boat, by crossing on a skiff in the dark of night or on foot on narrower parts of the river when it froze? How many made it? Drake , a spoken-word poet , visual artist, author and an activist who has been a central voice in the Breonna Taylor protest movement, began thinking several years ago about the lost and the thin narratives of enslaved Louisvillians when she visited Natchez, Miss., and its Museum of African American History and Culture . One wall featured a map showing the slavery route from Louisville, down the Ohio River to the … [Read more...]

In the early days of the pandemic , Jason Norton was enjoying the comfortable life he had built for himself. A father of three, he manages about $220 million for clients around his community in Carrollton, Ga., about an hour west of Atlanta. But in the course of the past year, he saw employees struggle financially and emotionally, clients question what they were doing, and a close uncle die from Covid-19. His views on wealth began to shift. “I used to think of wealth as financial independence to do what you want to do when you want to do,” said Mr. Norton, founder and chief executive of Norton Financial, a financial advisory firm. “My perspective has shifted. Now I view wealth more as a tool.” Mr. Norton is not alone in his evolving attitudes toward wealth. The pandemic has changed how Americans view wealth in far-reaching ways, according to two recent surveys. Even for the wealthiest, the coronavirus crisis challenged the notion that money could buy anything. Sure, a few … [Read more...]

Bring on the nationwide spending binge. Half of all people over 18 in the United States are now fully vaccinated . Tens of millions of them are emerging, blinking in the springtime sunshine, and heading straight for restaurants, movie theaters or a flight to somewhere — or anywhere, really. It is true that millions of people are still trying to get their hotel jobs or theater gigs back. But collectively, Americans are holding on to a larger share of their income than they have in decades . That leftover money is a kind of kindling. We may look back on this moment as a once-in-a-lifetime period, when many millions of Americans felt that money was burning actual holes in their pockets. It is an unfamiliar sensation for many of us. “There is a puritanical streak that runs through all aspects of money in America,” said Ramit Sethi, an author who focuses more attention than most on spending well in addition to saving intelligently. “And most of the conversations start with … [Read more...]