text:
The recovery hasn't hit the construction market just yet. A full five years into the Great Recession and construction employment remains below peak levels in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, according to a new analysis by the Associated General ...Read More »
Construction materials prices drop in December
Costs for construction materials for U.S. contractors fell in December. Prices declined 0.2 percent but climbed 5.3 percent from December of 2010, according to an analysis of producer price index figures released last week by the Associated General Contractors of ...Read More »
Not all Charlotte architects are building back up from the recession
During the recent Great Recession, every sector of the architecture business hit rock bottom. But now, as some faint glimmerings of recovery are beginning to appear, not all firms are equally participating in the uptick. Some companies are adding employees. ...Read More »
Interest low for DNC legal aid
While Charlotte boosters are on cloud nine about the 2012 Democratic National Convention, some contractors haven't been as blissful, complaining that they'll be passed over in favor of union labor.
Tagged with: Democratic National ConventionRead More »
Proposed Charlotte golf facility wins rezoning aproval
A rezoning request for a golf-training and teaching academy planned for a 42-acre site in northeast Charlotte has won the approval of the Charlotte- Mecklenburg Planning Commission's zoning committee. The committee OK'd the request, as well as other rezoning proposals, ...
Tagged with: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning CommissionRead More »
Outlook expressed
2011 is officially over, and some in the real estate and construction industries are glad to see it end.
Tagged with: John Culbertson Pat Rodgers Tony PlathRead More »
Name Game
The Charlotte Region Commercial Board of Realtors knew they had a great product with the online listings of the Charlotte Property Exchange. But what they didn't have was a great name. So they changed it this month. Gone is the Charlotte Property Exchange – or CPE – to be replaced by Site Index.Read More »
Internet scams trick vacationers with fake rentals
A family from Suriname was the first of a string of guests to arrive at Steve Chase's million-dollar South Florida home expecting a vacation — only, Chase didn't invite any of them.
Tagged with: Associated PressRead More »
Survey: Home prices down in most major US cities
U.S. home prices fell in most major cities for the second straight month, further evidence that the housing recovery will be bumpy and weigh on the broader economy in 2012.
Tagged with: Associated Press home pricesRead More »
Midtown Morehead Cherry Area Plan postponed
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning Commission's planning committee has postponed its decision once again on a recommendation about the Midtown Morehead Cherry Area Plan.
Tagged with: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Planning CommissionRead More »


text:
East Orange, N.J., native Dionne Warwick, 72, has filed for personal bankruptcy in her home state. The five-time Grammy-winning singer of "Do You Know the Way to San Jose" lists total assets of $25,500 and total liabilities of more than $10.7 million, nearly all tax claims by the Internal Revenue Service and the State of California, according to the filing obtained by Reuters. Warwick says she has a monthly income of $20,950 and expenses of $20,940. Warwick's rep, Kevin Sasaki, says Warwick was forced to file due to "negligent and gross financial mismanagement" in the late '80s and '90s.
Octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner, who single-handedly is keeping alive the pajama-making industry (I mean, what grown man wears jammies?), says his third wife, Crystal Harris, is sooo mega-awesome and sexy, she beats out every woman he's ever bedded. How many?

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Could someone plz resize mine for me. I can't seem to resize to a good size.
When things like that happen check the tutorial from the start and go through each step on your sig. You might find you missed a step or did it slightly wrong.Originally Posted by Celestial
Could someone plz resize mine for me. I can't seem to resize to a good size.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That away, when you criticize them, you're a mile way and you have their shoes.
What? You mean so that it fits the sig limits here?....I don't think that would look so good. :/ Everything would be squashed really small....Originally Posted by bubba-ga-nush
not quite the sig limits here. on they forum im on I don't think it has a limit, I just want it to not be so huge.
Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That away, when you criticize them, you're a mile way and you have their shoes.
Dang! my first post in this thread! I was in the other one the whole time. I won't make you taste your lunch again by posting my past "works". I will post this though:
and ask how, when I angle the white gradient over, can I not get the jaggies that are in my current sig?
Edit: hahaha, here's something I THREW together. I was mostly testing fraps and a .mov converter. Don't bash the bg.... I couldn't get it to look right inside the glass thingy.
Edit2: Nope, haven't gotten over the glassy effect yet.
Here's some things I've been screwing around with.
Last edited by Brawny; 04-14-2007 at 05:23 PM.
Umm...use the magic eraser tool to erase the black edges?? Or you can use the polygon lasso tool to section of the black and then brush with the background eraser tool...(the sectioning off part is just so you don't erase the other parts of your sig that you don't want erased).Originally Posted by Brawny
I don't know, do those not work?
About your second edit...the text is very hard to read. :/ But they both still look cool, I like the 2nd one better. Once again, I don't know much about the glassy effect so can't really criticize you/give you advice.
I saved as a jpg (as i mentioned). It doesn't preserve transparency. (yay, I taught you something new)
How bout the animation? lol
Edit: I'm kinda drawn to the second one as well.
Originally Posted by Brawny
What animation? The vid you mean?Originally Posted by Brawny
Of course you're drawn to the 2nd one, it's so damn spiffy!
yeah, the FoF (Guitar Hero-esque) one.
Ahh yes, that's what is, isn't it? :/Originally Posted by Brawny
It's cool...very simple, but yes. Cool. If you're going to start doing vid sigs (which I hate...) you'll need to learn out to blend them in and do special things with them instead of just making it a box. :/


text:
MESA, Ariz. -- Megafoods here said its common stock has been delisted from the Nasdaq Stock Market, effective Oct. 13. The company, which has filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code, said the action was taken after Nasdaq refused to grant an exception to its listing criteria for factors including minimum bid price per share and market value of publicly held shares. Megafoods, which operates 58 grocery stores in Arizona, Texas and Nevada, said it believes the ...
REGISTER TO VIEW THIS ARTICLE - Register for a Free Account
WhyRegisterfor FREE?
Registering for content on Supermarket News will give youINSTANTaccess to invaluable articles and media content that industry professionals rely on. You will have access to our special reports, feature articles, and industry analysis. It'sFREE, easy and quick. What are you waiting for!In addition you will also receive complimentary access to the SN salary survey data tables.
Click here to read the FAQ page if you have any questions (opens in a new window)
Attention Paid Print Subscribers: While you have already been grantedfreeaccess to SNwe ask that youregister now.We promise it will only take a few minutes! Or visit your profile and add your print magazine account number and zip code.


text:
FL-300R Flash (Reconditioned)
Olympus Certified Reconditioned Product is defined as any product that has been returned by our retail partners. Once the product is returned, Olympus conducts a rigorous five-point inspection of all product functions and features to ensure that the item meets our quality standards. Your product will function identically to a brand-new Olympus product, however it is possible for a refurbished product to have a minor blemish on the surface. We support certified reconditioned products with a 90-day repair warranty and 30-day money back guarantee excluding the cost of shipping. The FL-300R is an easy-to-operate versatile external flash for your PEN. With an equivalent GN (Guide Number) of 28 at ISO 200, you can accomplish flash shooting with stable light and optimum brightness. It functions as a bounce flash and wireless remote flash with enough power for most any typical shooting situation. Photographers can use it in tandem with the camera's built-in, pop-up flash, or as an alternative to it. Additionally, it has the ability to function wirelessly through a remote control function on the E-P3, E-PL3 and E-PM1.
Guide Number 28 at ISO 200 (when built-in wide panel is not in use), Guide Number 16 at ISO 200 (when built-in wide panel is in use)
9mm equivalent coverage (35mm equivalent focal length = 18mm) with built-in wide panel
Bounce capability: Down 30 degree, Up: 60 degree
3 modes: TTL-AUTO, AUTO, Manual, RC
AAA(R03) 2 alkaline batteries or AAA(R03)2 NiMH batteries
97g (3.4oz)[excluding batteries]
Includes flash stand and soft case
Item #V326110SU000-420
- You May Also Like
iGoDigital block 2. This is where the content from iGo will go.
Tell Us How Much You Love The FL-300R Flash (Reconditioned)
Do you own this product? Please, tell us what you think about it. When you do, you'll earn 10 Olympus Rewards Points! Reviews help us provide you with better products. Please note that it may take up to 72 hours for your review to appear.
Write A Review


text:
Category: Israel
Affordable Housing
A new post on Old Urbanist linking to prior posts about housing affordability, both on his own blog and on New World Economics. The theme is that various design standards – the two sites' main scourge is streets wider than about 5-10 meters and in general excessive room for parking and front lawns – force the cost of construction up, making housing less affordable.
In reality, the first thing to note about high housing prices is that they exist everywhere: not just in new urbanist towns in the US, the type of development under discussion on the above blogs, but also in New York, and Paris, and Tokyo, and Tel Aviv, and Hong Kong, and London. In my matrix of different types of city planning, every row contains cities whose housing prices stretch the middle class to its limits. Often there's significant homelessness, but most people have just enough to scrape by. The cities where housing prices are low compensate by either having very poor populations (inner-city Detroit) or requiring people to spend large quantities of money on driving (the Sunbelt): note how across US metro area, the total percentage of household income spent on housing and transportation is essentially constant.
Thus, as a first filter, the cities whose housing prices are low relative to incomes are very spread out and auto-oriented, exactly the opposite of any kind of urbanism other than suburbanism. As a second filter, Ed Glaeser notes that the high cost of housing in coastal cities comes from supply restrictions in the form of zoning, writing about Boston and about Manhattan as case studies.
First, what is clear about situations with unaffordable housing (really, barely-affordable) is that it is not due to high construction costs. Glaeser himself notes that construction of luxury apartments in Manhattan costs about $300 per ft^2, while the sales price per ft^2 is on average $600. In particular, parking requirements and other restrictions that effectively raise construction costs are not the primary agent to blame for high housing costs in general. An extra $20,000 for a parking spot is not going to make housing unaffordable, though it may influence developers' decisions of what and where to build to maximize profits, in particular by making them abandon urban construction in favor of the suburbs. Glaeser blames persistently high housing prices on a regulatory tax, which forces developers to spend extra money on lobbying and preparing paperwork for permits.
Second, the primary determinant of housing prices is not capital costs, but the cost of the land underneath. An older post on Old Urbanist asks why real housing prices have increased since 1920; the answer is that a house is not a manufactured good, but primarily land, as is especially clear when one considers expensive, desirable cities.
Third, the worth of land is dependent on demand. Land on which a developer can build three apartments is worth three times as much as land on which a developer can build one apartment. That's why on the level of the individual building, building higher does not reduce rents. Land supply only forms the limiting factor when there's a regionwide desire to be in an area with a fixed land constraint, such as the national borders of Singapore or Monaco, or the physical extent of the New York City Subway or the walkable radius of Central Tel Aviv. In such cases, it could reduce prices to expand the available space for housing within the fixed constraint, via either increasing density or expanding the desirable area through transportation infrastructure or landfill. But otherwise, there's not much point.
When high housing prices are genuinely the result of high capital cost, the result is different from that of high demand or a shortage of land. Consider North Tel Aviv, which mandates expensive whitewash on its traditional garden city buildings. When those buildings were first constructed in the 1930s, they were priced too steeply for the working class, leading the rising middle class to move in instead. Since the whitewash is also high-maintenance, apartments deteriorated, and the only buildings that maintain an aesthetic exterior cost much more to maintain and are only affordable to the rich. In effect, the result of high capital cost is worse physical stock, the opposite of what normally happens in Tokyo, New York, and other expensive cities.
Anti-gentrification activists often fight policies that make their areas more desirable; the above three points help explain why. Affordable housing to them is a bargain to richer people, and if they want to move in, they'll be priced out. The only way to depress housing prices is to depress demand. One activist, a Harlem preacher with extreme right sympathies, even calls for a general economic boycott of his own neighborhood in order to cause an economic collapse and lower rents.
The inevitable conclusion, namely that it's impossible to make housing persistently cheap without raising other costs or impoverishing people, does not mean that affordable housing issues are moot. First, the equity issue remains; although on average housing is just marginally affordable, to many people it is not affordable, and as a result, expensive cities engage in government intervention to prevent mass homelessness, even ultra-capitalist Singapore.
In addition, although expanding housing supply makes land more valuable and normally prevents prices from falling, it also create better housing in the process. Auto-oriented sprawl in the US has caused dwelling size to increase; upzoning and the construction of better transportation infrastructure in expensive cities would enable people to move from the periphery to the core – or, more precisely, people could stay where they are, but public transit could redefine regions from periphery to core.
For a toy model, suppose there are two kinds of development: regular suburbia and new urbanism, where new urbanism is more expensive. Constructing more new urbanism is going to reduce the price for both kinds of housing (new urbanism has an increase in supply, regular suburbia suffers from a subsequent decline in demand), while also shifting people from regular suburbia to new urbanism. Overall the average price of housing shouldn't change, but the quality will increase.
In other words, on a national or regional level, affordable housing is never a problem; it may be a problem for poor people, but not in general, on average. Supply restrictions should show in low-quality housing, measured in terms of size, local walkability, aesthetics, and other factors that on the local level determine price.
Tel Aviv Protesters' Demands
The protesters on the ground in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities are often disorganized, and lack coherent goals; many have claimed that the very presence of bottom-up protest is good enough on its own (which Israeli blogger Idan Landau notes is evidence for how low the public's expectations of politics are). However, many organizations for affordable housing have banded together to form a more normal political front, and are calling for concrete reforms. A website can be found here; it is in Hebrew, but has the occasional English article.
While the leftist bloggers are still demanding rent stabilization, it is only one of several demands (Landau proposes it together with public housing and an end to land privatization), and the new Coalition for Affordable Housing has released a nine-point plan that is considerably broader. Their main demands, amendments to a national housing law under discussion, are as follows (translated from a summary article on Ynet and a blog post on the coalition's site):
1. Every high-rise national housing plan with at least 200 units must include at least 20% affordable rental units and at least 30% units with at most 75 square meters.
2. No plan will be approved if it includes only housing for welfare recipients, in order to avoid creating concentrated poverty.
3. Public housing will have priority, and the state will spend the 2 million shekels (about $580 million in exchange rate value, or $670 million in PPP) it has from previous sales of public housing on new construction.
4. Affordable units will be rented for at most 25% of the maximum income ceiling for eligibility, and the rent could only be increased at a fixed rate, whose value the coalition does not mention.
Separately, the student groups are issuing their own demands, which, in addition to small and affordable apartments, include removal of legal barriers to municipally approved development, taxation of apartment buying for investment rather than for renting, 400 million shekels for construction of student housing, and opening 5,000 500-square-meter lots in the Negev and Galilee for construction of subsidized units.
The government's own proposals have not gotten popular support, as the protesters consider them to be mere bones or actively counterproductive. Two members of the Knesset – Labor's Shelly Yachimovich (who is currently running for the top position in the party's primary) and Likud's Karmel Shama, have offered a rent stabilization law limiting increases in rent to 5% a year; the protesters rejected it. More cynically, PM Netanyahu tried to buy the students out with a 50% discount in public transportation fare; he was met with the same scorn he got in the 1990s, when he tried to deliver pizzas to students who were on hunger strike.
So far, ideas meant to increase central city housing supply have not been seriously raised by any group. Netanyahu's plan to accelerate construction must be viewed as an attempt to reward developers rather than as a housing solution; owing to the high land prices, new construction tends toward luxury, just like in New York and other expensive cities. This led to general opposition to any supply-side solution, at least among the bloggers I read; for example, Shalom Boguslavsky, whose article about the Jerusalem light rail I ran six weeks ago, blamed the problem on inflated demand coming from speculation. Note, however, that the student proposals do include some supply increases, though not within central cities.
I still maintain the most effective solution should be to avoid rent controls at all costs, and instead pursue the following set of policies:
1. Subdividing apartments must be legal, as must new construction of small apartments.
2. Zoning should preference contextual housing over towers in a park, and allow 6-story buildings as of right, with 8-story zones on wider streets and in more desirable neighborhoods. Setbacks should be eliminated for future construction, and for front yards this should be retroactive, legalizing enclosed balconies as long as the materials are more permanent and aesthetic than plastic. These two points together should roughly double the allowable intensity of development, while also incentivizing small improvements by building owners over large-scale redevelopment.
3. Low-income people should receive subsidized or public housing. Even if the housing is owned outright by the government, it should be done voucher-style, and buildings should not clearly advertise that they are public. For example, a new public housing company could be empowered and given a budget to purchase small buildings anywhere it wishes, even in expensive neighborhood.
4. Speculation should be deterred by, as the students propose, a tax on buying housing as an investment. I do not have the details of the students' proposal, but I would propose a capital gains tax. A tax on imputed rents for owner-occupied housing, as in Switzerland, should not be necessary here; the problem is at the upper end of the market, not in the middle.
5. The government should invest in public transportation, including a subway for the inner Tel Aviv region and an upgrade of the rail network to modern S-Bahn standards. Israel is already pouring concrete, i.e. building extra lines to unserved cities, but the organization is still substandard, with mediocre frequency and no ticket or schedule integration with local transit.
Rent Control
Tel Aviv's housing protest grows, and Saturday night tens of thousands of protesters descended on HaBima Square, demanding rent control. Although I have yet to see media heavyweights on the left echo those demands – instead, they view it in abstract terms of people power versus the state – they are clearly too important to ignore right now. There is already a response from the right and from (classical) liberals saying that it's government's fault and that the correct solution is deregulation of new construction.
However, since government intervention is ubiquitous in expensive cities, including several famous ones I have lived in, I'd like to talk about case studies of world cities. In most of the last ten and a half years, I lived in Singapore and New York. Both have extensive government regulation, despite the capitalist orientation of Singapore. However, this government involvement takes different forms, though some of consequences are similar.
In New York, there's rent control, precisely what the Tel Aviv protesters are demanding. More precisely, there are two forms of rent regulation: rent control, and rent stabilization. Rent control is far stronger, requires the tenant to have continuously occupied the apartment since 1971, and only applies to 2% of rental units, mostly in Manhattan. Rent stabilization allows higher rents and merely limits the increase in rent every year to a few percent, and is far more common, applying to about half of rental units. Both figures come from the most recent housing survey, in 2008. There are also public housing programs, some for the poor and some for the middle class. In addition, the Inclusionary Housing Program encourages developers to set aside 20% of the units as affordable housing, by offering them a bonus in floor area ratio.
In Singapore, the main form of government involvement takes the form of subsidized public housing, called HDB estates after the housing development board. These are rented and sold to Singaporean citizens at a discount, and are home to 85% of Singaporeans. The mandatory savings accounts, which function similarly to social security programs except that people only get back what they paid in, with no redistribution of wealth, encourages home ownership by allowing people to use their accounts to buy housing. Thus home ownership is high, in contrast to the situation in other expensive cities, such as New York.
The important feature in both cases is that not everyone is eligible for reduced rent. In New York, rent stabilization disappears in certain cases if the tenant leaves (vacancy decontrol); in Singapore, HDB is not available to non-resident immigrants, who form 25% of the country's population. This is also seen in other expensive cities, including Monaco, where the minority of residents who are citizens have access to highly subsidized public housing, and Hong Kong, where half the population receives housing subsidies.
The result is parallel markets. There's an affordable market, and an unregulated market, which is much more expensive than it would be without government involvement since there is a restricted supply of market-rate housing. Effectively, in order to prevent mass homelessness, the government increases rent for unfavored groups – expats in Singapore, relative newcomers in New York – in order to reduce that of favored groups. Rich members of the unfavored groups, for example executive expats, can easily pay the higher rent. Poor members, for example recent immigrants from developing countries, pay the rent by living in overcrowded housing.
A more pernicious result, common in New York, is landlords' recurrent attempts to move rental units from the controlled or stabilized market to the unregulated one; although rent control is rare, it is concentrated in desirable neighborhoods that once hosted many working-class artists, such as SoHo and the West Village. Since the path of least resistance is vacancy decontrol, landlords harass such tenants in any way possible.
Immigrants who speak little English are a favored target of harassment, since they often don't know their rights, and since many of their neighborhoods, for examples Washington Heights and Alphabet City, are desirable for college students. In contrast, students are often a standard replacement, since they have more money due to parental support, and are transient and therefore don't complain as much about maintenance. However, everyone who is stabilized or controlled can be at risk; many of the stories I have heard come out of the Village rather than Washington Heights. Community board members know countless instances of landlords who defer maintenance, install noisy or inefficient heating and refuse tenants' suggestions for better options, turn off the electricity or the water at inopportune times, and even engage in outright fraud. An anti-gentrification activist from West Harlem told a Columbia student group of landlords who pretend not to have received rent checks from their tenants, and then use this as an excuse to evict them.
I do not know whether the same results exist in other expensive cities with extensive rent control, for example Paris; I would appreciate help from any reader who knows the situation there. However, I posit that at least some degree of the two above issues are universal to a regime in which part of the market is regulated and part is not.
Based on admittedly partial information, I'd recommend against rent control in Tel Aviv, and for other forms of reform, including some government intervention when necessary. The differences with other land-constrained cities, in which intervention is universal, can be summed as follows:
1. Tel Aviv, while dense, is not as land-constrained as Singapore, which is limited by national borders, or New York, which is limited by the available subway infrastructure; therefore, there's less inherent market pressure on land prices.
2. Tel Aviv's zoning code allows much less development, and can be reformed accordingly. The 1920s-era Geddes Plan, good for its time but now in need of change, mandates setbacks of 4 meters front and back and 3 meters of each side, roughly halving the buildable area of the 20*25 lots typical of the city, and limits height to 4 stories. In addition, the city makes dividing apartments into smaller units so difficult landlords have taken to doing it illegally
3. A big portion of the problem is low purchasing power among specific groups, namely students, who do not have access to free tuition as in many progressive European countries or loans as in the US. Thus it's not just a housing problem, as already noted by some protesters.
In general, there's a distinction between socialism and bureaucracy. Social-democratic programs can be delivered with remarkably little bureaucracy. The Soviet Union was both socialist and bureaucratic, but Scandinavia's quality of government is much better, as seen in its stellar rankings on corruption indices. In contrast, many developing countries impose many hurdles on starting a business without appreciable socialism, for example India's license raj. The difficulty of building affordable market-rate housing in many cities can be traced to bureaucracy in the form of an onerous permit process, a zoning code that requires so many variations that developers are at the mercy of politicians, and similar questions that boil down to political power.
The consequence is that the process of reform must target regulations that empower kvetching community board and city leaders to make landlords' lives miserable. Good deregulation would make it easier to build and easier to build densely, and streamline the permit process. It would not try to inflict maximum damage on tenants. The reason I'd mistrust any deregulation coming out of the present government is that its recent record – for example, cutting funding to fire services in the years leading up to the Mount Carmel fire – is not one of trying to make government better, but of trying to make government so small and inefficient it can be drowned in a bathtub. It's exactly this attempt to destroy public services and give handouts to politically connected entrepreneurs that people in Tel Aviv are really protesting.
Housing Protest Ongoing in Tel Aviv
Over the last week or so, protesters have been occupying HaBima Square in central Tel Aviv with tents, demanding cheaper housing. Prices in Israel have been rising sharply over the last ten years, especially urban housing prices, and new urban construction is predominantly luxury. Populist politicians are already visiting the tents, talking up their own record on marginally related issues.
Some right-wingers, who identify everything coming out of Tel Aviv as left-wing, which locally means a dovish elite, are instead yelling at the protesters to "move to the periphery," where housing is cheap. Israel has the opposite city/suburb dynamic as the US: the city center is generally richer and more expensive than the suburbs, and the richer suburbs of Tel Aviv – typically those in its favored quarter to the north – are not called periphery any more than the Upper East Side is called an inner city.
The problem with such a dynamic is that the periphery has no access to jobs. The roads are congested (and the extra driving costs would eat up the entire difference in rent); public transportation doesn't run on weekends for religious reasons and consists of buses, which are very slow, and commuter trains, which aren't very frequent and do not get people to most city destinations.
The housing problem, as one may expect, is predominantly political. While Tel Aviv's wealth and access to jobs make it unusually desirable, there has not been any concerned attempt to create livable secondary urban centers. This post explains in more detail the issues; while it's in Hebrew, you can still look at the pictures – in short, despite reforms, zoning still encourages construction like that in the first photo (a "development town," i.e. a housing project, with about the same connotations as in the US) and discourages that in the second photo (Sheinkin Street, a once-bohemian, now-gentrified commercial artery).
Although Tel Aviv's car ownership is not very high – about 60% of households own a car – parking is mandated in most new developments. Existing parking facilities are overstretched; pricing parking is a political non-starter. And despite the high demand for non-luxury housing, city regulations make it difficult to build smaller apartments: according to the blog linked above, it is difficult to get approval for apartments under 120 square meters, or to subdivide large apartments.
As in New York and other cities with a housing shortage, the resulting land shortage is leading developers to concentrate on the luxury market. In the last decade, developers have built huge skyscrapers surrounded by empty land along and near Namir Road, a wide arterial throughfare that the government is trying to turn into the new CBD and that the first line of the Tel Aviv subway is planned to pass under. Due to the building height, the density of such developments is fairly high, but in reality not much higher than the surrounding neighborhoods. Akirov Towers have a density of about 125 apartments per hectare, counting to the midlines of the streets adjacent to the development; the residential parts of the Old North, built almost uniformly to the fourth floor, average about 250 residents per hectare, and my own calculations suggest about 100 apartments per hectare.
A cohort of reformers, from both left and right, propose better public transit as a solution. People would be able to live in the periphery and commute to city jobs. The main efforts in the region are new commuter lines and the subway. The subway has been proposed and canceled so many times that nobody I have talked to seems to believe it will ever open. The commuter lines are not electrified and run against a capacity constraint in central Tel Aviv, where there is room only for three tracks; in addition, the service level is far short of an S-Bahn or RER, and is on a par with the higher-grade lines in North America, for example the LIRR. Typically the people advocating for such issues, even in government, are secular and would favor operating public transportation on the Sabbath, but no action or serious legislation has emerged yet, despite a fair amount of grassroots activism.
Less commonly proposed is development in the gaps in urbanization. As is readily seen on Google Earth, there is empty space directly adjacent to the urban area both to the north and south of Tel Aviv, interposing between adjacent municipalities. I am told that there was a plan to develop the empty space to the north, but it was torpedoed by a local desire to keep the municipalities strictly separate. (For clarification, those are both wealthy favored quarter suburbs – I believe Herzliya and Ra'anana, but I no longer remember.)
Also not commonly mentioned is the issue of political will. The protesters do not view their cause as one strictly about housing. A commenter on another blog quotes the following text from one of the tents:
I'm not here because of housing prices. I see them as a symptom of a systemic problem – a country that loses its democratic character in favor of a corrupt system of government based on connections, lobbyists, and property owners….
After a few days here, I'm discovering amazing things. People are completely forgetting about the elements that usually divide them, share their opinions, and listen to each other. Housing prices look like a drop in a sea of inequities. The problem is systemic. The apartments are a symptom.
We are still in the initial phase, where everyone talks to his heart's content – but this is how you build cross-sectional solidarity.
If we continue to deal only with housing, at best we'll solve just one point, important as it is, and in a year we won't be able to afford food or studies. I worry we'll miss the Israeli Spring and settle for a few flowers in our vase.
The Israeli government is no stranger to rapid growth. The settlements' population went up 50% between 1999 and 2006. In terms of urban-rural politics, Israel has still not gotten to the stage that cities are an object of romanticism, and keeps pouring money into contested regions in order to create facts on the ground. The era of Mapai, the predecessor of today's Labor Party, saw disinvestment in cities in favor of kibbutzim and development towns in peripheral regions; today, there's some investment in luxury towers in the newly-built CBDs, but the political system is still anti-urban, just with a different focus.
Tel Aviv's housing prices are putting it between a rock and a hard place. The status quo is intolerable; so is massive urban renewal, raising density marginally and pricing out the middle class, which unlike in American cities has remained mostly intact. The political consensus, to the degree it exists, is not to do anything. Good urban design and laxer zoning rules could mitigate some of those problems, but they're too politically unpalatable right now. So, unless they indeed settle for a symbolic reform, the protesters will stay.
Written in Concrete
This post was originally written in Hebrew by Shalom Boguslavsky, a social and political activist living in Jerusalem who blogs about Israeli politics at Put Down the Scissors and Let's Talk About It. The views expressed here are those of the author rather than my own; I translated it because it's important to showcase the politics of transit and there's a dearth of good English-language analysis of Israeli transportation. -Alon.
As you've probably heard, the light rail (blight rail in Jerusalemite) is doing its final test runs before starting to operate. Here, as everyone knows, the only law that's properly enforced is Murphy's Law, so the train has managed to cause damage even before the first passenger has boarded when it was used as an asinine excuse to move religious Zionism's annual hate march away from its normal route and toward Sheikh Jarrah.
Trains – like anything else, some would say – are a text, and a political text at that. Every text is like this at the place under discussion, and the series of design choices that have been taken tells us something about the people who selected them. Like every truly effective political text, it masquerades as a professional text, so that we the lay public won't bother, but instead leave the decision makers to do what they please.
But if the considerations behind the line were professional, most likely it would have looked completely different. Today, it begins at Mount Herzl/Yad Vashem, across from the Haredi neighborhood Bayit VeGan; passes through the Central Bus Station and Jaffa Road; cuts across to Route 1, which was once the no man's land between West and East Jerusalem; and continues from there to Pisgat Ze'ev. In short, the IDF-Holocaust-Haredis-settlers line.
Did the planners conceive of this symbolism that I see? I doubt it, but they made their choices: only about a kilometer and a half separate Mount Herzl from the Golem at Kiryat HaYovel. This is a gigantic urban neighborhood with a very diverse population whose socioeconomic status is medium or lower, for the most part. It also attracts a lot of cultural and educational activity of all sectors and the center of the city's social activism. The people there desperately need good public transit and it's only a kilometer and a half. But it's been postponed to the next phase, which given the 11 years of destruction of the first one who knows when it will come. Pisgat Ze'ev, a settlement that's closer to Ramallah than to central Jerusalem, got priority and is in the first phase even though there the need is less urgent, and at any rate the inner parts of the city need to get solutions before the bedroom communities that are already served by fast highways anyway.
The insistence on directing the train to Pisgat Ze'ev comes at the expense of the choice to build the first line as a ring line. After Jaffa Street, the train could have passed by the bonanza of rich tourists of King David Hotel, the culture and entertainment sector of the German Colony, the Talpiot industrial zone (which includes the cheap commercial center that serves most of the residents of the nation's poorest city, among other things) and the neighborhoods nearby it, Beit Safafa, and Malha, which is home to Teddy Stadium, the under construction Arena, the train station, and the Biblical Zoo, which attracts a lot of visitors and is really not lush with public transportation. After that it would have served the neighborhoods of Malha, Ramat Sharett and Ramat Denya, the eastern end of Kiryat HaYovel and back to the Golem. It would have helped solve some difficult transportation problems of southwest Jerusalem. The axes in Jerusalem are mostly north-south, and to get by bus from Kiryat HaYovel to the German Colony or Talpiot, despite the short distance, takes longer than to get to Tel Aviv, and not much shorter than to walk. It would have been possible at the next phase to connect Gilo to the blight rail. Gilo is a settlement as well, in fact the largest of them, and it would have also served a large stream of settlers from Gush Etzion and Mount Hebron who enter the city through it. Of course unlike the popular view, the Israeli government has no interest in serving the settlers, only in serving the settlements. The settlers are like the rest of the people here – a means and not an end – only with a different spot in the hierarchy of privileges.
On its way to Pisgat Ze'ev, the train passes within a spit's distance of the Hebrew University's Mount Scopus campus. It would have been easy to route the train near the university so that it would have served thousands of students who need much more public transit than they are getting. Instead of doing so, city hall went for a step that was supposed to be "modern" and built "bike paths" from the train to campus. Why the scare quotes, you ask? Well, one must see the "bike paths" to believe it, and I implore everyone who is not named Evel Knievel not to put his front wheel on one of these paths if he ever wants to see his loved ones again. Oh, and the trains have no room to store bicycles on board.
And this is before we start talking about the obvious thing. There's no need for a train at all, and in its stead it would have been better to invest in BRT, a method with which third-world cities with less money and more mess have already solved their transportation problems. There's BRT in Jerusalem too, but it's mainly buses and not lanes, and those giant buses have been directed straight to the thriving Mahane Yehuda Market, choking what has become a (pedestrianized) national attraction in the last few years.
And what is even more obvious: you may have noticed this post, like the train's route, is concerned only with West Jerusalem and the big Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem. The idea that the blight rail is supposed to serve the forever and ever united city's Palestinian residents, except those who live right on Route 1 and those who are rich enough (or collaborators the Shin Bet helps) to live in Pisgat Ze'ev, is still science fiction in Israel of 2011. Palestinian East Jerusalem is simply left on purpose (come on, say "the Arabs can build up") in a third world state of urban design, in the hope that the Arabs will leave it. There's probably no clearer example to the regime of separation in the city than the two separate public transit systems, for Jews and Arabs. True, an Arab can get on a Jewish bus and vice versa, but the transportation doesn't even flow on the same grid. But this is worth a separate post, and simply reflects on the city level what is happening on the national level.
Because if you're sighing in relief at this stage thinking that you live in a city with saner urban policy, let me spoil your party. If this is so, it's only because you have an urban policy. In Jerusalem, there's only national policy, managed by the same government that runs the rest of the country. The city is run directly by the government, and is governed for symbolic and geopolitical needs and not for the welfare of its residents. Jerusalem's city government is the weakest in the country and the role of the mayor, in addition to "taking out the garbage" (as Prime Minister Golda Meir clarified to Mayor Teddy Kollek back in the day), is to foment riots, do public relations, and finagle money from American Jews. Other than the part about removing the garbage, Mayor Nir Barkat is indeed great at his job. And we, the locals, simply feel the wrath of the government's arm directly.
Quick Note: Safe Streets, Safe Cities
Everyone should go read Jan Gehl's post on Streetsblog about good urban design, excerpted from his book Cities for People. I have nothing to add, except to underline one part that's often underrated among urbanists: the role of parked cars as buffer between moving cars and pedestrians or cyclists. Compare this photo with this photo, and ask yourself where the cyclist is better protected.
I generally tend to be very supportive of Manhattan's design. The streets may be wider than elsewhere, but that translated mostly to increased pedestrian space. Manhattan's 18-meter side streets have 1-2 driving lanes and a parking lane on each side; so do the 12-meter side streets in Tel Aviv, the difference being that in Tel Aviv cars park with two wheels on the sidewalk. As long as there's an adequate street wall and the buildings are not set back from the street, it isn't a real problem. As Gehl notes, there are many ways to make cities livable short of the ideal of Venice, in which cars begin where the city ends.
City Schools
In Tel Aviv, people may move to the suburbs for a variety of reasons – the impossibility of finding parking in the city and the high housing prices are two popular complaints – but not school quality. There are great public schools right in the city, including some non- or barely selective schools; the metro area-wide magnet classes for gifted children are located in the city and in some of its inner suburbs.
As one might expect, Tel Aviv is a high-income city: on a list of municipalities in Israel ranked by income, Tel Aviv is rated 8 out of 10 (higher is richer), where the only places rating 9 and 10 are a few exclusive gated communities and a single major suburb, Ramat HaSharon. Tel Aviv's richer suburbs, to its north, are rated 8 as well; there is nothing to gain income-wise from moving, except perhaps that Tel Aviv is more diverse and has both super-rich areas and poorer areas while the suburbs are uniformly upper middle-class. As far as I can tell, it has always been the case – like France, Israel has a long history of housing the poor in the outskirts rather than in the inner city; this is not a recent case of gentrification.
Against this light, what Aaron Renn is writing about city schools is unsurprising. As American cities are getting relatively richer due to gentrification, their quality of public services, including schools, is improving, due to both more money and middle-class civic tradition. This process is incomplete and slow: because American cities' recent history is of ghettoized squalor rather than gated opulence, many city schools are substandard and suffer from neglect, underfunding, and corruption, and this itself is a turnoff for prospective urban residents.
In effect, the areas that are already rich attract the rich and middle class; this should not surprise anyone. Corruption can be bought away with enough money, and underfunding is not an issue. New York's suburbs lead the nation in school funding, which requires property taxes, and as a result, the six counties with the highest property taxes in the US are New York City suburbs; ironically, one of the reasons people move back to New York, which according to the ACS data is outgrowing the rest of its metro area, is that its property taxes are lower.
Urban activist Jonathan Kozol even wrote a book blaming discrepancies in school funding on inner-city school underperformance. His statistics, as of the early 2000s, showed about $11,000 per student in funding in New York, and $22,000 in its richest suburbs. Since then, Bloomberg has hiked school funding to nearly $18,000 per student, while the suburbs have not increased much, going up to $24,000 in Great Neck and $26,000 in Manhasset, two districts cited by Kozol for high spending.
Services are always good for the rich. In homogeneous high-income communities, there is no need for private security, private schools, and other excesses typical of the wealthy in poor areas. Instead, high housing prices act as a replacement for gates – and, incidentally restrictive zoning forcing housing prices up is a major component. Thus, public services are of high quality, even in areas that love nothing more than to yell at urban liberals for wasting money on schools.
Although the upper and middle classes are often still afraid to stay in the city with children past age six, this is declining. While the Israeli middle class can skip on the low-income suburbs and instead move to high-income ones, the American middle class can't move into a city without dealing with poor people. When they do, it creates friction, as always happens when people suddenly have to deal with those who are different – for example, in New York, it involves separate schools, some good and some not, located in the same building.
The defining question for urban consensus governance is how to make sure the friction ends up resolving itself well, with good public services extending to regions that are not rich. Merely requiring integration of services does not solve much; the problem is more systemic. In Hawaii, the state's status as a single school district led to school underperformance, and, as such conservative writers on urban issues as Michael Lewyn point out, school integration in American cities led the white middle class to escape to segregated suburbs and private schools, which offered a gated education experience. Clearly, changing governance boundaries without social change does not solve social problems much.
Little Things That Matter: Stoplight Phasing
In Manhattan, most intersections have two stoplight phases: one permitting all north-south traffic, and one permitting all east-west traffic. Each phase lasts about 45 seconds, ensuring that pedestrians can cross even the widest avenues in one go with time to spare.
In Tel Aviv, the signalized intersections are almost never as in Manhattan. Even intersections of major streets with side streets will usually have three phases, and intersections of two major streets will usually have four, permitting conflict-free turns; turn conflicts with pedestrians exist on such intersections, but are uncommon.
From the traffic engineer's perspective, Tel Aviv intersections are better – they're supposed to be safer and smoother for the driver, with none of the snarl that happens when a car driving on Upper Broadway tries to turn left. They're also hell for anyone not in a car, since waits are much longer, and to compensate for the larger number of phases each phase is shorter. This discourages enough pedestrians as to reduce the number of pedestrians for cars to hit, creating an illusion of even more safety.
If there's enough car traffic, then streets with complex stoplight phasing are uncrossable 75% of the time. But if the street is median-divided, this is even worse, because the traffic engineers try to optimize car traffic, which means the pedestrian green on the two halves of the street is unsynchronized. At some intersections, one direction of a crossing is pessimized for the pedestrian: that is, after crossing one half of the street, the pedestrian will have to wait nearly a full cycle to cross the other half.
There are emerging calls for complete streets, which include such important features of walkability as wide sidewalks and frequent crosswalks. But the frequency of the crosswalks is only partial consolation if the stoplights are optimized for high car speed rather than high walking speed. For a healthy, young individual, the difference between not having to wait at intersections and having to wait a minute and a half every 300 meters is the difference between walking at 6 km/h and walking at 4 km/h. Traffic engineers do not tolerate phasing that slows down cars by 33%, and should not tolerate phasing that so slows down pedestrians.
The above does not apply as much to low-traffic areas such as Downtown Athens, Georgia, because there are sufficiently few cars that locals ignore pedestrian stoplights anyway. But in a large city with many cars such as Tel Aviv, it's difficult to cross safely on red. As a result, streets that are no wider than a Manhattan avenue can take multiple minutes to cross, and one such street, Ibn Gabirol, divides the neighborhood it passes through in a way that 42nd and Broadway never do.
Ibn Gabirol and similar streets are not suburban arterials. They're not like Athens' Baxter Street. They have a street wall, very wide sidewalks, and mixed uses, just like Manhattan avenues. They also have enough foot and car traffic that they don't feel desolate. They feel very walkable, as long as you stay on one side; it's when you try to cross that their auto-oriented nature becomes apparent.


text:
With great advancements in automotive industry, it is quite evident that the demand of classic cars is on the increase. This high demand directly translates to increase in the prices of cars making it difficult for commoners to afford a decent car. The competitiveness of the automobile industry has led to a way of selling and buying cars online. This involves a process where sellers post the cars on offer to their classified websites and potential buyers buy from them online.
There are many websites of online companies that sell both used and new cars. Browsing for "classified car websites" in the internet yields hundreds of websites that lets you list your car for sale or buy a car from any site. It would be tedious to spend time sifting through the long list to figure out the worthwhile sites. The following is a list of the four most trusted classified cars websites:
1. Cars.com
- Cars.com is the perfect site to search for your SUV, car,truck and any automobile.
- It is possible to make comparison of vehicles, quotes from car dealers as well as quick location of pre-owned cars.
- This site provide the listing of their cars to over 170 newspapers as well as partners like Yahoo Autos.
- Approximately 3million used or rather second hand cars are available for sale at any time.
- If you want to sell your car, this is the ultimate site to do the listing. With only a premium listing fee of $55, you are guaranteed money-back within 90 days. For advertisement, you only pay an extra $15 for your car to be added to the basic ad listing that have your car advertised or marketed for 21days.
2. AutoTraderuae.com
- Auto Trader uae offers a large database of both dealer listing and used car listings.
- With their package having similarities with Cars.com, the premium fee for listing is 600AED that give you more boost for and 90% chances to sell your car fast then any other car selling site in UAE.
- They provide a special offer of 10 AED that does not guarantee you money back making it flexible and affordable.
3. MotoSeller.com
- This is an international company that provides a platform for buying and selling used cars online.
- They give an easy way to sell your car using a network of car classifieds.
- For the buyers, you are able to browse hot, classic and featured cars or find access via a preferred dealer or broker.
- With MotoSeller.com, Ads of available cars for sale are available all over Canada, US, AU New Zealand, the UK and Australia.
4. CarClearanceDeals.com
- They have extensive network of trusted dealers who have large inventory of cars from which they get the best prices at discount.
- With their simple form, you can chose the model and make of your dream car and get an instant listing of what is available in your proximity.
- In this site, you have the negotiating power since you have full access to quotes on similar cars.
In all the above and the unmentioned sites , the procedure of search is usually simple (in terms of):
- Select by make and model
- Search by category
- Browse by price
The extensive availability of such classified cars websites exposes a substantial threat of scams to potential buyers. It is therefore advisable to buy or sell your car via a site that has an established reputation and positively reviewed by buyers.


text:
How's this for a perfect family holiday memory? A beautifully decorated train adorned with thousands of lights, hot spiced cider and cocoa, and an appearance by Santa—pretty great, right? A holiday train ride offers something special for everyone in your family whether you are a train fanatic or not. We've rounded up the best holiday trains the Bay Area has to offer. Many of these sell out faster than a speeding train, so get your tickets now!
Photo Credit: Napa Valley Wine Train
Points North
The Napa Valley Wine Train Santa Train
Each December, the Napa Valley Wine Train transforms into the magical Santa Express. Children are first greeted by a professional photographer for a picture with Santa at the station. The fun continues on the train as costumed characters including Frosty the Snowman, the Gingerbread Man, Rudolph and of course Santa meander through the cars entertaining the little ones during this 1.5 hour journey. Along with a glass of wine, parents will also the enjoy the gorgeous scenery of the vineyards as the train chugs along Highway 29 from Napa to the town of Yountville.
Photo Credit: Napa Valley Wine Train
Good to Know:
- Make your reservations NOW. This train sells out very early.
- 10 Santa Express trains run each season
- Regular seating at a table, no booster seats available
- Food and drink are available for purchase on the train, including a kid-friendly menu
Times: November 30 – December 17 (See website for full schedule). Morning and afternoon trains available
Where: The Napa Valley Wine Train Station, 1275 McKinstry Street, Napa
Cost: $25 per person (children and adults), $45 per person for seats in the Vista Dome
Online: winetrain.com
The Skunk Train Christmas Train
It is well worth the drive up north for a visit to the Skunk Train. There you will experience 40 miles of railroad through some of the most beautiful redwoods, mountains and coastline in Mendocino County. With this gorgeous setting as the backdrop, the Magical Christmas Train is truly special. Each family can enjoy strolling musicians, playful elves and a visit with St. Nick on board. Light refreshments are provided including hot cocoa in a souvenir cup, popcorn and wonderful cookies. The Skunk Train invites your whole family to share in the holiday cheer, including your dogs! That's right, well-behaved dogs are also welcome on the ride!
Photo Credit: Jack H. via yelp
Good to Know:
- Dress in layers as the outside cars can get chilly
- Pack a lunch, as there is no lunch stop on this train. Some light refreshments are included
- Several local hotels and B&Bs offer discounts and packages for Skunk Train visitors, both in Fort Bragg and Willits. Check here for details.
Dates: December 3 – December 23
Times: See website for full schedule as several departure times are available
Where: The Skunk Train departs from either Ft. Bragg or Willits
Cost: $44 per adult, $34 for children ages 2-12, $10 per Dog and infants under 2 are free. Tickets are available with a Christmas storybook for an additional cost.
Online: skunktrain.com
Points South
Santa Cruz Holiday Lights Train
Santa at the Beach! This unforgettable journey begins by boarding a vintage train decorated with thousands of lights. Once you embark on this 60 minute round trip ride, your family can enjoy refreshments, a holiday sing a long, and even a visit from Santa. The fun continues after the train ride too. Admission for the holiday train also includes your choice of one activity at Santa's Kingdom at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk with choices ranging from mini golf, laser tag or arcade games.
Photo credit: Roaring Camp Railroad
Good to Know:
- Leave the strollers in the car as there is limited space on the train
- Bring snacks as food options are limited
- There are Porta-potties on the Holiday Lights train
- There is also a Holiday Tree Walk where you can take a steam train from Roaring Camp's Felton location to Bear Mountain and view a tree-lined walk of decorated trees.
Dates: November 27 and 28; December 5, 6, 12, 13, 18 – 23
Times: 5 p.m., 6:30 p.m., and 8 p.m.
Where: Santa Cruz Holiday Light trains depart and return in front of Neptune's Kingdom on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. 400 Beach Street in Santa Cruz
Cost: $29 for adults and $23 for children ages 2-12
Online: roaringcamp.com
The Caltrain Holiday Train
A holiday tradition since 2011, this free family event is a chance to check out special Caltrain cars decked out with over 70,000 glittering lights. The Holiday Train makes stops at 9 Caltrain stations between San Francisco and Santa Clara. Come to one of the stations to take in the beautiful train, listen to holiday entertainment and bring a donation for Toys 4 Tots, as they will be collecting there. It's the perfect opportunity to enjoy a winter evening with your little ones while also showing them the importance of giving back to kids in need in your community.
Photo Credit: Caltrain Holiday Train presented by Silicon Valley Community Foundation
Good to Know:
- This is not a ride and no passengers are allowed on the holiday train. The public is invited to join in the celebration at each of the stations thirty minutes before expected arrival time.
Dates: December 5th and 6th, 2015
Times: See online schedule for arrival and departure times
Where: Caltrain Stations between San Francisco and Santa Clara
Cost: Free!
Online: holiday-train.org
Billy Jones Wildcat Railroad Fantasy of Lights Train
Erupting volcanoes and dinosaur dens! When you board the Billy Jones Wildcat you're in for much more than your standard holiday train ride. The sweet little open-air train takes you for a 1.5 mile drive through Vasona Park's Fantasy of Lights spectacular. Cuddle with your loved ones listening to the festive tunes the train provides and take in all the lighted exhibits which feature everything from traditional holiday decorations to the more unexpected ones like a giant pirate ship.
Photo cedit: Jenn T. via Yelp
Good to Know:
- Dress warmly. The train is small (roller coaster style seats) with no roof or windows.
- Children under age 2 ride free with a paying adult
- You can also walk or drive your car through Vasona Park to see the Festival of Lights
Dates: Runs in December, Thursdays through Sundays
Times: 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Where: 233 Blossom Hill Road at Oak Meadow Park in Los Gatos
Cost: $5 per person
Online: bjwrr.org
Points East
Zoo Lights at the Oakland Zoo
The Oakland Zoo pulls out all the stops for their annual Zoo Lights Festival of Holiday Lights. Evening hours allow kids and adults the chance to experience hundreds of thousands of sparkling LED lights illuminating the zoo, turning a typical zoo visit into something extraordinary. There are countless activities from checking out dozens of decorated animal structures to catching the arrival of Santa's sleigh from the North Pole. Don't forget to pick up some "zoo bites" when the kids get cranky and need a snack asap. Grab a hot cocoa or other holiday treat and hop on the Outback Express Adventure Train for a short 20 minute ride–perfect for even the smallest kiddo. A chance to be at the zoo in the dark enjoying all the holiday cheer is too good to miss!
Photo credit: Oakland Zoo
Good to Know:
- Children under 2 are free
- Zoo members receive a $1 discount
- Parking is free
- Check the Zoo's website in December for specific information on Santa's arrival times
Dates: December 4th through Jan 3, 2016 (closed December 24 & 25)
Times: 5:30 p.m. – 9 p.m.
Where: Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland
Cost: $8 per adult; $7 per children
Online: oaklandzoo.org
Niles Canyon Railway Train of Lights
The Niles Canyon Train of Lights is an extremely popular East Bay tradition for many. The twinkling lights on the antique coaches are sure to bring holiday cheer to any Scrooge in your family. Enjoy festive snacks, jolly music and joyful merriment as you take in the 13 mile round trip ride. Be sure to say hi to St. Nick!
Photo credit: Paul B. via Yelp
Good to Know:
- Get your tickets early! This event is very popular and sells out quickly. Tickets are available online.
- The ride lasts a little over an hour
- Trains run rain or shine
- Train departs on time so arrive early
- No strollers on board
Dates: Every Wednesday, Friday and Saturday during the holiday season (except December 24th & 25th)
Times: The train departs Niles at 4:30 p.m. and Sonol at 7:30 p.m.
Where: Niles station and Sonol station
Cost: $30 per person, $45 per person in the first class dome (children 2 and under are free if on a lap)
Online: ncry.org
Do you and your family like to ride the rails at the holidays? Tell us about it in the comments below!
—Melanie Ulate and Amber Guetebier


text:
Bay Gardener Frank Gouin honored for community good deeds
It's what's underneath that counts
Let's raise the stakes on voting
While the Harvest Moon lingers, the sun begins a fast getaway
Bulbs planted deep now will give you a big show come spring
Catch some for now and some for later
Do you think watching three men silently eat olives would be funny? In Art, it is hysterical.
The scariest part is knowing you paid to see this ludicrous sequel
Sketches of Annapolis Primary candidates
© Copyright 2016, New Bay Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.


text:
Giorgio BertiniResearch on society, culture, neuroscience, cognition, critical thinking, intelligence, creativity, autopoiesis, self-organization, rhizomes, complexity, systems, networks, leadership, sustainability, thinkers, futures ++
Learning Change Project
Academic SupportThe Learning Change Project is a personal not-4profit-sponsors multidisciplinary initiative to support academic activities. Use the files freely for your Courses or Research. To prepare Reading Lists explore the Category List or Search for the topic of your interest. If you need any support, contact me.
700 Posts in this BlogFollow my Networks for recent Posts. For authors, date, publishers +metadata, view the source.
- Follow Learning Technologies of Change on WordPress.com
Recent Posts: Learning Art
Learning Change
Children Learn by Observing and Contributing to Family and Community Endeavors: A Cultural Paradigm
Children From "Underserved Minority" Backgrounds Have Strengths for Learning
How to Raise a Sympathetic Child
Swarm-made Intelligent Architectures
Models of Affective Decision Making – How do Feelings Predict Choice?
Learning Community Change
Learning Cultural Change
Learning Philosophy of Change
Learning Political Economy of Change
Learning Research & Change Methods
How to Solve the World's Biggest Problems
Interdisciplinarity: How to Catalyse Collaboration
Creative Research Methods in the Social Sciences: A Practical Guide
Mapping Your Thesis: The Comprehensive Manual of Theory and Techniques for Masters and Doctoral Research
Interesting Ways to Communicate Your Research
Learning Sciences of Change
Learning Sustainability of Change
Learning Technologies of Change
Wikipedia in Education: Acculturation and Learning in Virtual Communities
How has Google Affected the Way Students Learn?
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture
Uberizing Organizational Learning – Thinking Beyond Courses
A New Pedagogy is Emerging … and Online Learning is a Key Contributing Factor
- My Tweets
Daily Archives: March 12, 2012
What is Google+?
Yes, Google+ is Google's answer to Facebook, but not in the directly competitive sense many journalists assume. Google+ is core to Google's mission "to organize the world's information", and that's a better frame for thinking about this service. Here are … Continue reading
Posted in Google+ Tagged Google+ Leave a comment
Dialogical media learning
As Paolo Freire has written: In order to understand the meaning of dialogical practice, we have to put aside the simplistic understanding of dialogue as mere technique … dialogue characterizes an epistemological relationship. Thus, in this sense, dialogue is a … Continue reading
Testing the Feasibility of OER-Course Certification
The OERtest project is a two year (Oct. 2010 – Sep. 2012) project funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of European Commision. Its aim is to support the mainstreaming of OERs within Higher Education and to test the feasibility of … Continue reading
Broadband, Social Networks, and Mobility Have Spawned a New Kind of Learner
Students are different today because of technology. Every educator knows this, of course, but this change is about much more than agile thumbs, shriveling attention spans, and OMG'd vocabularies. According the Pew Research Center, the combination of widespread access to … Continue reading
Posted in Digital citizenship, Digital culture, Digital literacies, ICT, Students Tagged digital culture, digital literacies, ICT, students Leave a comment
Reading a book versus a screen: Different reading devices, different modes of reading?
A book or a screen – which of these two offers more reading comfort? There are no disadvantages to reading from electronic reading devices compared with reading printed texts. "E-books and e-readers are playing an increasingly important role on the … Continue reading
Posted in Digital content, Digital culture, Digital literacies, Reading Tagged digital culture, digital literacies, reading Leave a comment
Dramatically Bringing Down the Cost of Education with OER
We are in the midst of a revolution in education. For the first time in human history we have the tools to enable everyone to attain all the education they desire. And best of all this education is available at … Continue reading
Posted in OEP, OER Tagged oep, oer Leave a comment


text:
Top Definition
a shaggy dog is a person, not an animal with an overly long fringe or hair cut. this makes them look like a dog with long hair. they are generally beautiful people underneath and dont always use their head to mop floors
'woah she looks like a shaggy dog'
by miami101 April 01, 2009
Trending Now
Can you define these popular missing words?


text:
Dr. Joyce Brothers, Legendary TV Psychologist, Dies At 85
Dr. Joyce Brothers, the famed columnist and TV psychologist, died peacefully in her home in Fort Lee, N.J., on Monday, her family confirmed. She was 85.
Brothers' career took off in 1955 after she appeared on The $64,000 Question, and became the first and only woman to go home the winner. Just three years later, NBC offered her a trial TV show, in which she would offer personal advice on a host of common topics – love, marriage, children, career, etc.
Her penchant for diving into the more taboo waters of her guests' personal affairs earned her both fame and notoriety, propelling a career that would last nearly six decades. Brothers became a well-known TV personality, and made a number of appearances on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Gallup even included her on their list of America's most admired women.
Along with her work on TV, Brothers also penned advice columns. She wrote a monthly column for Good Housekeeping, and a syndicated column that appeared in over 350 newspapers during the height of her career.
Brothers' critics insisted that her brand of psychology was irresponsible – not the deeply analytical care that patients require. She confronted those who were less enthusiastic about her status as a media psychologist by informing them that she advised people who needed professional help to seek it.
Brothers is survived by her sister, Judge Elaine Goldsmith; her daughter, Dr. Lisa Brothers Arbisser; four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
Get Uinterview's FREE iPhone App For Daily News Updates here.
Get the FREE Uinterview iPad app here and watch our videos anywhere.


text:
When you have any question about tourism or activities in Espoo, come and visit one of Espoo's Citizen's Offices for tourist information. The Citizen's Offices provides you with information about the city, its sights, events and services. In addition to brochures and maps the Citizen's Offices also give you tips and ideas how to spend your leisure time or holiday.
Visit EspooPhone +358 9 8164 7230 (mon-fri 9:00 - 16:00 EET)Email: visit(a)espoo.fi
Tourist information is available at Citizen Services in Espoo:
Espoo Centre Citizen ServicesShopping Centre Espoontori, Kamreerintie 3 C , 02770 Espoo
Matinkylä Citizen ServicesShopping Centre Iso Omena, Piispansilta 11, 02230 Espoo
Tapiola Citizen ServicesEspoo Cultural Centre, Kulttuuriaukio, 02100 Espoo
Leppävaara Citizen ServicesSello Library, Leppävaarankatu 9, 02600 Espoo
Espoonlahti Citizen ServicesShopping Centre Lippulaiva, Espoonlahdenkatu 4, 02320 Espoo
Kalajärvi Citizen ServicesRuskatalo, Ruskaniitty 4, 02970 Espoo
Check the opening hours >>
Helsinki Region Tourist Information:
Helsinki Region Tourist Information at the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport serves especially foreign visitors and transit passengers.
Tourist Information is situated at Helsinki-Vantaa Airport in Arrival Hall 2 A inside Terminal 2.
The Helsinki Region Tourist Office is funded by the cities of Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa, as well as by Uusimaa Regional Council and Visit Finland. The office is operated by Visit Helsinki and supported by Finavia.


text:
Many investors believe that successful dividend investing consists of identifying the highest yielding stocks in the market and then generating double digit returns on investment each year. The problem with this strategy it that it often overlooks the fact that such dividend yields are most often unsustainable in the long run. A much better strategy that could eventually produce double digit yield on cost to investors is dividend growth investing. Using this strategy a patient investor accumulates a diversified portfolio of stocks which have a long history of consistently growing dividends. The positive factor is that any investor can implement this strategy, especially now that brokerage commissions are almost zero.
Dividend investors are paid for holding common stocks, which is one reason why a company which keeps paying a stable or rising dividend does not fall as much during bear market declines. The dividend returns are always positive, which provides a safety cushion even in the worst times possible. Furthermore dividends cannot be faked, whereas earnings could be massaged within certain limits in order to reach performance targets that are not economically prudent.
This return can be reinvested which further magnifies long-term income growth as well as total returns. Companies that raise dividends also provide a tangible proof that companies do have the cashflows to pay them. A company which does not have a solid business model typically cannot afford to raise dividends for more than a few years.
Paying dividends also imposes a discipline upon companies, which restricts excessive empire building or "diworsification" through overpriced acquisitions. Opponents of dividend investing often claim that dividend stocks are boring and slow moving, and instead recommend purchasing fast growing rising stars, which reinvest everything back in their business. While re-investing back into the business is a good idea, expanding too rapidly might lead to excessive leverage build up with disastrous consequences for the owners of the business. Any solid company should be able to balance its capital investment needs with its shareholders demands for returns on their investment. Successful companies such as McDonald's (MCD) and Wal-Mart (WMT) have not only grown their business in a smart way, but have also rewarded shareholders consistently as well.
Currently, the market is a little overextended off of its March lows. Many investors are wondering whether they should cash out or keep adding to their positions. Dividend investors on the other hand have the luxury to ignore market movements as long as distributions are intact and growing. After all solid companies with definite competitive advantages which throw off rising dividend payments each year do not lose their moats overnight. Such companies include Johnson & Johnson (JNJ), Procter and Gamble (PG), Chevron Corporation (CVX), Pepsi Co (PEP) and McDonald's (MCD).
The Procter & Gamble Company (PG), together with its subsidiaries, provides branded consumer goods products worldwide. The company operates in three global business units (GBU): Beauty, Health and Well-Being, and Household Care. Procter & Gamble is a dividend aristocrat as well as a component of the S&P 500 index. One of its most prominent investors includes the legendary Warren Buffett. Procter & Gamble has been increasing its dividends for the past 53 consecutive years. (analysis)
McDonald's Corporation (MCD), together with its subsidiaries, franchises and operates McDonald's restaurants in the food service industry worldwide. The company's share of the US fast food market is several times larger than its closest competitors, Burger King (BKC) and Wendy's (WEN). McDonald's is a major component of the S&P 500 and Dow Industrials indexes. The company is also a dividend aristocrat, which has been consistently increasing its dividends for 33 consecutive years. (analysis)
PepsiCo, Inc. (PEP) manufactures, markets, and sells various snacks, carbonated and non-carbonated beverages, and foods worldwide. PepsiCo is a major component of the S&P 500, Dow Industrials and the Dividend Aristocrats Indexes. PepsiCo has been consistently increasing its dividends for 37 consecutive years. (analysis)
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) engages in the research and development, manufacture, and sale of various products in the health care field worldwide. Johnson & Johnson is a major component of the S&P 500, Dow Industrials and the Dividend Aristocrats Indexes. One of the company's largest shareholders includes Warren Buffett. JNJ has been consistently increasing its dividends for 47 consecutive years. (analysis)
Chevron Corporation (CVX) operates as an integrated energy company worldwide. Chevron Corporation is a component of the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials Indexes. The company is also a dividend achiever, which has been consistently increasing its dividends for 21 consecutive years. (analysis)
Full disclosure: Long CVX, JNJ, MCD, PEP and PG
Relevant Articles:
- Chevron Corporation (CVX) Dividend Stock Analysis
- Procter & Gamble (PG) Dividend Stock Analysis
- Dividend Investing vs Trading
- The Sweet Spot of Dividend Investing
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Dividend Investors are getting paid for waiting
Popular Posts
"Far more money has been lost by investors preparing for corrections, or trying to anticipate corrections, than has been lost in corrections...
Investors who are looking for quality stocks that regularly raise dividends have several lists available as a starting point in their ...
My investing goals are very simple – to cover my expenses from dividend income generated from my portfolio. In order to translate goals in...
Every dollar that you have in your possession can be traced back to you exchanging your labor for money. The labor you provided was essentia...
I have highlighted below several frequently asked questions about dividend investing. This is not an all inclusive list, but more of a runn...
Motif Investing is an established brokerage which lets investors create their own portfolios, and purchase them for a set commission. Each...
There are many misconceptions about dividend investing. I have tried itemizing several of them, outlining them, and providing a brief comm...
There are four key attributes that need to be considered, in order to be successful at dividend investing. These ingredients include focusin...
There are two schools of thought when it comes to dividend reinvestment. One of the options is to automatically reinvest dividends , wherea...
I have been writing about dividend growth investing since January 2008. I often get asked questions by readers. Many of those questions in...


text:
Reeve Carney and Ashley Greene: New Couple Alert!
Reeve Carney has swung into the arms of Ashley Greene.
Sources confirm to Us Weekly that the star of Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is now dating the Twilight Saga beauty.
Reeve Carney has swung into the arms of Ashley Greene.
Sources confirm to Us Weekly that the star of Broadway's Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is now dating the Twilight Saga beauty.
Nikki Reed is out for revenge. Ashley Greene is out for a repeat. And only you, THG readers, can determine which dream will come true...
A year ago, these Twilight Saga beauties went at it in a Fashion Face-Off that elicited a surprising result: with thousands of votes cast, Greene blew away her pretty competition. Check the poll results for yourself.
Unexpected, mismatched couple alert!
Witnesses spotted Gerard Butler and Ashley Greene getting both hot and heavy on June 7 at the Boom Boom Room in New York City.
New photos from Breaking Dawn show Edward and Bella in numerous intimate moments - under a waterfall, sharing a loving look, on their honeymoon - as well as other scenes from the upcoming Twilight saga installment.
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 will be released in November.
Ashley Greene doesn't want to talk about the past.
In the latest issue of Glamour, the Twilight Saga star is asked about her split with Joe Jonas and replies: "I don't want us to talk about our ex-boyfriends or ex- girlfriends. The past is the past. As long as it's not a mass-murderer past! You're with the person who you're with as they are now."
Ashley Greene doesn't want to talk about her split with Joe Jonas.
Because she was so hurt by the adorable singer? Perhaps. Or maybe because she's already moved on from him.
She's fresh off a relationship, and she might be moving on to a new one, but Ashley Greene didn't want to talk about Joe Jonas or Jared Followill last night.
The actress was out with friends in Los Angeles, but got quickly swallowed up by a horde of reporters. One asked a question about Joe, to which Ashley replied: "That's not very nice." But she did maintain her cool and posed with fans soon after the paparazzi encounter.
Joe Jonas who?!?
Ashley Greene has reportedly moved on from her ex rather quickly, as multiple reports state she spent quality, cozy time this week with Kings of Leon bassist Jared Followill.
So much for what you read in magazines.
The same week Details released excerpts from its interview with Joe Jonas in this month's issue, one in which the singer gushed that Ashley Greene "puts my feelings first," we've learned that the singer and the Twilight Saga star have split.
Life is pretty good for Ashley Greene.
The Twilight Saga actress is gearing up for life in the spotlight again, as Breaking Dawn comes out in November and she's also co-starring with Miley Cyrus in LOL.
Joe Jonas and Ashley Greene are getting more serious by the day.
The actress recently gushed to Teen Vogue about the "sweet and funny" man on her arm, while sources tell Pop Eater that Jonas is equally as smitten with the Twilight Saga beauty.
Life is pretty good when you're dating an adorable singer and starring in one of the most beloved movie franchies in history.
Just ask Ashley Greene. Which is exactly what the March issue of Teen Vogue has done. Below, we've excerpted the beauty's takes on Joe Jonas, the Twilight Saga and a lot more...


text:
Browsing College of Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies by Title
Now showing items 199-218 of 531
His Heart is There (The Irish Times, 2005-03-26)
Historical duty, palimpsestic time, and migration in the Decade of Centenaries (Taylor & Francis, 2015-11-23)This article analyses Sonya Kelly's How to Keep an Alien (Dublin Tiger Fringe, 2014) and ANU Production's Vardo (Dublin Theatre Festival, 2014) in relationship to the performative backdrop of the Irish Decade of Centenaries ...
How French is 'French' sport? (Edinburgh University Press, 2015-12)This article explores how sports in France have responded to the challenges of globalization, and also to the opportunities of an increasingly multicultural society. Two case studies are offered in which a distinctive ...
How well are Europes rural businesses connected to the digital economy? (Taylor and Francis, 2004-09)As economic activity becomes increasingly globalized, partly by means of new information and communication technologies (ICTs), one of the key expectations of European policy-makers was that businesses in rural regions, ...
Human Flourishing: The Grounds of Moral Judgment (Springer, 2008)
"I Do Repent and Yet I Do Despair": Beckettian and Faustian allusions in Conor McPherson's the Seafarer and Mark O'Rowe's Terminus (Routledge, 2012)In a press interview in April 2007, Conor McPherson correctly anticipated the imminent conclusion of the 'Celtic Tiger' period – the decade-long economic boom that had transformed Ireland into one of the world's richest ...
I Love You (as they say) (The Irish Times, 1998-10-31)
The Ideal Elegies (The Irish Times, 2001-01-06)
The ideology of population control in the UN draft plan for Cairo (Springer, 1994-09)This paper examines the influence of population control ideology on the draft plan for the UN Cairo Conference on Population and Development. It is argued that this draft plan can only be fully understood in the context ...
If You Go Down to the Woods Today... (The Irish Times, 2006-10-21)
Imagining Belfast Twice a Year (The Irish Times, 2002-08-03)
The impact of constructing aqueducts on the settlement patterns of Roman Crete (2004-10)In this paper the Roman aqueducts of Crete will be presented for the purpose of exploring the effects of aqueduct construction on settlement patterns on the island.1 The study will demonstrate the diversity and the extent ...
Imperial Geopolitics (2009)
Improving medication management in multimorbidity: development of the MultimorbiditY COllaborative Medication Review And DEcision Making (MY COMRADE) intervention using the Behaviour Change Wheel (2015-09-24)Background: Multimorbidity, the presence of two or more chronic conditions, affects over 60 % of patients in primary care. Due to its association with polypharmacy, the development of interventions to optimise medication ...
Increased perceptual resolution: temporal event structure coding in autism spectrum disorders (Public Library of Science, 2012-03-21)Cognitive functions that rely on accurate sequencing of events, such as action planning and execution, verbal and nonverbal communication, and social interaction rely on well-tuned coding of temporal event-structure. Visual ...
Industrial Schools and identification: Revisiting the total institution (2011)In this paper, I revisit a forgotten empirical site, Ireland's industrial schools. Thousands of children lived and worked in these organizations from an early age until adulthood. They were hidden from mainstream Irish ...
Innovative initiatives: targeting the declining science enrollments in Ireland (The New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 2006)At the time of economic growth in Ireland, declining numbers of students enrolling in the sciences is emerging as an educational concern. Using a 2002 Government of Ireland commissioned report on science: The Task Force ...


text:
Trainer Manger
p8ntballer8491 posted on Oct 10, 2008 8:01:14 PM - Report post
I just got the Manager, and i think its a great idea. One thing i think you should change is the ability to change the Trainer Name, because some of the older trainers do not have a name. Maybe you could also add some Icons.
Maybe you could include this in some later updates. I assume you'll be updating in the future. I think this will become a great tool.
Sorry if this isn't in the right place
TMH posted on Oct 10, 2008 8:04:22 PM - Report post
You can change trainer names just like any other icon, right Click and hit rename, if it doesnt let you do it from the TM itself go into the trainer folder with the original Icon
Unapologetic American
Unapologetic American
p8ntballer8491 posted on Oct 10, 2008 8:13:31 PM - Report post
Yea, i know i could do that. But there's a column for "Trainer" and another separate one for "Trainer Name". Most of the ones in "Trainer Name" column are blank. I'm just suggesting it, I don't want to sound to anal about it. I almost never spend money online, but i did for this site because i think you guys make great stuff.
PWizard posted on Oct 11, 2008 3:47:16 AM - Report post
It's not a bad idea and something we may add to a future version. Thanks for supporting our site!
Chris O'Rorke (email@example.com)
Co-Founder: Cheat Happens.com
Facebook . Google+ . Trainer Blog
Co-Founder: Cheat Happens.com
Facebook . Google+ . Trainer Blog
Page 1 of 1
Post Reply
All times are (GMT -06:00) Central Time (US & Canada). Current time is 1:12:33 PM
Message Board Moderators
Important Board Topics
Trending Topics