Quote – Peter E Lenz

Housing Can’t Be Both Affordable and a Good Investment

…This also means that the two stated pillars of American housing policy—homeownership as wealth-building and housing affordability—are fundamentally at odds. Mostly, American housing policy resolves this contradiction by quietly deciding that it really doesn’t care that much about affordability after all. While funds for low-income subsidized housing languish, much larger pots of money are set aside for promoting homeownership through subsidies like the mortgage interest deduction and capital gains exemption, most of which goes to upper-middle- or upper-class households.

Source: Housing Can’t Be Both Affordable and a Good Investment

Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty hasn’t followed. – The Washington Post

The trend has been as swift and sweeping as it has been overlooked. In 1990, Americans in poverty were 14 percent likelier to live in a city than in a suburb. By 2012, they were 22 percent likelier to live in a suburb. In D.C.’s suburbs, over the first 15 years of the millennium, the number of people in poverty grew by 66 percent. Elsewhere, the explosion was even bigger. Sun Belt cities led the way. The increase was 126 percent in Atlanta’s suburbs; 129 percent in Austin’s; 139 percent in Las Vegas’s. The Midwest wasn’t far behind: 62 percent in Cleveland’s suburbs; 84 percent in Chicago’s; 87 percent in Detroit’s. The suburban poor are likelier than their urban counterparts to be white and to own their homes, but otherwise they’re demographically similar, according to a study from the Brookings Institution. Two-thirds of both groups work, about 15 percent have a disability and nearly half are in deep poverty, below 50 percent of the federal poverty line.

Source: Poverty is moving to the suburbs. The war on poverty hasn’t followed. – The Washington Post

The Great American Road Trip: Shorter and More Popular Than Ever

Despite taking shorter trips, people nonetheless want to roam as far away as possible. “They don’t want to spend the night any closer than eight hours from home,” Mr. Cohen said. And the trip has to have multiple overnight stops with activities and attractions, “not just Grandma’s house,” he said. For example, Mr. Cohen said retirees typically visit family during their road trips, but most of the time they stay elsewhere.

Source: The Great American Road Trip: Shorter and More Popular Than Ever

Kraft Heinz Made Its Factories Really Efficient. Now It Has to Sell Bologna – WSJ

Over the past 2½ years, thousands of workers lost their jobs, and iconic Kraft buildings, including the original Oscar Mayer headquarters in Madison, Wis., have been shuttered and sold. The cost-cutting project is now wrapping up, giving Kraft Heinz Co. KHC 0.60% the highest operating profit margin among its peers in the U.S. food industry.

That success, however, has unveiled a new, tougher challenge, one that is outside 3G’s traditional area of expertise. Kraft Heinz commands a smaller share of a shrinking overall market for processed meats, hit by consumers’ desire for fresher, more natural foods. And while 3G is expert at taking over iconic American brands and squeezing out costs, it is less known for building sales—especially for a product out of sync with consumer tastes.

Source: Kraft Heinz Made Its Factories Really Efficient. Now It Has to Sell Bologna – WSJ

The House That Spied on Me

I installed internet-connected devices to serve me, but by making the otherwise inanimate objects of my home “smart” and giving them internet-connected “brains,” I was also giving them the ability to gather information about my home and the people in it. The company that sold me my internet-connected vacuum, for example, recently said that it collects a “rich map of the home” and plans to one day share it with Apple, Amazon, or Alphabet, the three companies that hope to dominate the smart home market. Once I made my home smart, what would it learn and whom would it tell?

Source: The House That Spied on Me

WWI’s Zeppelin Bombings Popularized the Trend of ‘Pyjamas’

Pyjamas were both warmer and more practical than thin nightdresses during air raids, but attractiveness was important for some, too. “The zeppelin raid has not only set a fashion for respirators but it has, ridiculously enough, given rise to an attempted fashion in clothes,” sneered one Guardian columnist in August 1915. The column went on: “Zeppelin pyjamas can be made of honest flannel. Very much more often they are made of crepe de chine, or, failing that, of Japanese silk. Favorite colors are dark blue and pale pink. Needless to say the former color is most suited for its purpose”—presumably to blend into the night.

Source: WWI’s Zeppelin Bombings Popularized the Trend of ‘Pyjamas’

The Most Well-Funded Tech Startup In Every State

Our map infographic shows the top tech startups in every US state, as determined by funding totals. They include Avant, DraftKings, and Vox.

Source: The United States Of Startups: The Most Well-Funded Tech Startup In Every US State

Why Some Apps Use Fake Progress Bars

Benevolent deceptions can hide uncertainty (like when Netflix automatically loads default recommendations if it doesn’t have the bandwidth to serve personalized ones), mask system hiccups to smooth out a user’s experience (like when a progress bar grows at a consistent rate, even if the process it’s visualizing is stuttering), or help people get used to a new form of technology (like the artificial static that Skype plays during quiet moments in a conversation to convince users the call hasn’t been dropped).

Source: Why Some Apps Use Fake Progress Bars