Rental Talk

The New York Times has a very distressing article on how poor black women are disproportionately suffering from evictions, as compared to any other demographic in the country.  The article is pinned on a sociological paper which was recently published, which draws out a number of causes for why poor black women are being evicted at a higher rate.  

"Just as incarceration has become typical in the lives of poor black men, eviction has become typical in the lives of poor black women," says the author of the study, sociologist Matthew Desmond.  Black women are more likely to be raising children than black men at the same income bracket.  This is a two-part blow for them financially: if you have children, you need a larger apartment.  And children can be kinda expensive in and of themselves, obviously.


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I have seen the recommendation to "walk away from your mortgage" cropping up everywhere lately.  It sounded like fringe advice at first, but now I have seen it advised by financial advice celebrities like Suze Orman, and most recently in a New York Times article.

In fact, the Times is running two renting-positive articles at the same time - one recommending that homeowners stuck in an upside-down or "underwater" situation with their mortgage just walk away, and one exploring the stories of people (specifically men) who bought houses, came to regret it, and went happily back to renting.


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I'm sure you've noticed storage units cropping up all over the place, but did you know there are seven times as many storage unit facilities as there are Starbucks?  That we now have more than seven square feet of self storage space for every man, woman, and child in America, so that it's "physically possible that every American could stand - all at the same time - under the total canopy of self-storage roofing"?  Because seriously, I didn't!  

The New York Times has a long and engrossing article about storage unit rental.  I expected it to be a diatribe against the wastefulness of self storage, the waste of money, of time, of land, and of clutter.  But Jon Mooallem has written a far more nuanced article than I would have expected.  


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A new law in Richmond, California is outlawing cigarette smoking in all apartments, condominiums and public places. When my family and I were in San Francisco a few years ago, I remember how hard it was for my aunt to find a place to smoke—I’m sure residents of Richmond are feeling her pain.

Apparently the big anti-smoking campaign is in response to the American Lung Association grading the city with an “F.”

The ban will be enforced by January 1, 2001, following a ban already in effect against smoking in farmers markets, parks and other public places. Fines for smoking in an apartment will begin at $100.

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