No McMansions for Millenials -- Gen Y Says NO!

Source: Wall Street Journal
By S. Mitra Kalita and Robbie Whelan, Jan 14, 2011

Here's what Generation Y doesn't want: formal living rooms, soaker bathtubs, dependence on a car.
In other words, they don't want their parents' homes.

Much of this week's National Association of Home Builders conference has dwelled on the housing needs of an aging baby boomer population. But their children actually represent an even larger demographic. An estimated 80 million people comprise the category known as "Gen Y," youth born roughly between 1980 and the early 2000s. The boomers, meanwhile, boast 76 million.

"One-third are willing to pay for the ability to walk," Ms. Duggal said. "They don't want to be in a cookie-cutter type of development. ...The suburbs will need to evolve to be attractive to Gen Y."

Outdoor space is important-but please, just a place to put the grill and have some friends over. Lawn-mowing not desired. Amenities such as fitness centers, game rooms and party rooms are important ("Is the room big enough to host a baby shower?" a millennial might think). "Outdoor fire pits," suggested Tony Weremeichik of Canin Associates, an architecture firm in Orlando. "Consider designing outdoor spaces as if they were living rooms."

Smaller rooms and fewer cavernous hallways to get everywhere, a bigger shower stall and skip the tub, he said. Oh, but don't forget space in front of the television for the Wii, and space to eat meals while glued to the tube, because dinner parties and families gathered around the table are so last-Gen. And maybe a little nook in the laundry room for Rover's bed?

In his presentation, KTGY Group residential designer David Senden showed slide after slide of dwellings that looked like a cross between a hotel lobby and the set of "Melrose Place."

He christened the subset of the generation delaying marriage and family as "dawdlers."

"A house in the suburbs is not for them," Mr. Senden said. "At least not yet."

Places to congregate are more important than a big apartment, he cautioned. He showed one layout of a studio apartment-350 square feet, as big as Mom and Dad's Great Room. Common space has migrated to "club rooms," he said, where Gen-Y residents can host meals and hang out before heading to a common movie-screening room or rooftop swimming pool that they share with the building's other tenants.

The Great Recession and its effects on young people's wages will affect how much home they can buy or rent for years to come.

"Not too many college grads can afford a lot of space in the city," he said. "Think lots of amenities with little tiny units-and a lot of them to keep (fees) down. ...The things these places are doing is constantly coordinating activities. The residents get to know each other and it makes for a much livelier and friendlier environment."

It Takes a Village - An Old-Fashioned One

Source: Playborhood Blog by Mike Lanza
Posted: 01/06/11 12:57 PM

I agree with Hillary Clinton that It Takes a Village to raise a child. I just don’t agree with her on what kind of village it takes.

In her bestselling book of that name, Clinton finds the original notion of a village to be quaint and outdated. She writes, “The village can no longer be defined as a place on the map.” Instead, “it is the network of values and relationships that support and affect our lives.” Many other writers agree with her that a village isn’t physically delimited. Even fifty years ago, communications theorist Marshall McLuhan coined the term “global village” to argue that mass communications technology had created a single, global culture.

The problem with this modern definition of a village for children is that they can’t use most of the technologies that adults routinely use to extend a village beyond a small local area. They can’t drive cars on their own until they reach the age of 16, and they can’t interact with others using interactive communications technologies like mobile phone texting until sometime in the elementary or middle school years. So, for children, this modern village concept would force them to depend on the the intervention of parents.


As I’ve argued repeatedly here on Playborhood.com, children have a deep need to experience things on their own. The more rich is the physical (not virtual) domain that children can access on their own, on foot, the better.

So, I strongly believe that it takes a village - i.e. an old-fashioned, tight-knit neighborhood - to raise a child. Not some “network of values and relationships.” Not a “global village.” This village is a place where children can wander safely on their own, where they have many meaningful relationships with people - children and adults - outside of their families.
Because children need parenting help when they’re outside our homes, our kids need other kids’ parents to step up and be surrogate parents to our kids when we’re not there. And, we need to do it for those parents’ kids.

We need to feed each other’s kids, soothe them when they get hurt, protect them from danger, and be a resource when they need something. If we parents in a neighborhood (or our surrogates - i.e. babysitters or nannies) join together and do these things for each other’s kids, our kids will feel comfortable wandering up and down the block on their own. We’ll be comfortable letting them do it, too.

Sociologist William Julius Wilson coined the term “reciprocal guardian behavior” back in the 1980s to describe the phenomenon of adults caring for children who aren’t their own in urban poor neighborhoods. Lyman Place in the South Bronx is an excellent example of such a neighborhood. Wilson thought this behavior was a key to making these neighborhoods safe, so that kids could feel comfortable going outside to play.

It’s clear to me that the benefits of reciprocal guardian behavior extend to all social classes. It’s about more than just safety - fundamentally, it’s about creating the conditions for a life of independent play in the neighborhood.

We parents can help make our neighborhoods into villages by spending time in our neighborhoods, socializing with other parents and encouraging our kids to play with neighbor kids. Playborhood.com is full of suggestions on how to make this happen.

Have you invested significant time in making your neighborhood into a village? Or, do you fill up all your kids’ free time driving them to activities outside your neighborhood?

Halloween for Kids in Your Neighborhood

Source: Mike Lanza, Playborhood

My neighborhood is either the Disneyland of Halloween or the Ivy League of Halloween for our area (our streets are called Yale, Princeton, Harvard, etc.!). I strongly prefer the latter. I should explain.

We have a reputation for being so fun on Halloween that lots and lots of trick-or-treaters come by who would never pass by our house the rest of the year. We handed out a few hundred treats last night, and we would have handed out a few hundred more if we hadn’t shut down at 8pm.

You “Halloween Tourists” know who you are. Well, I have a message for you:

First, I welcome you, provided you’re respectful to our neighborhood, and provided there aren’t too many of you. Last night was fine on both counts. Thanks for sharing in the joy of our neighborhood.

Halloween is the most outstanding indicator of the quality of life our neighborhood offers our children. Your attendance in our neighborhood last night helps us appreciate what a truly great neighborhood we’ve built with our neighbors.

We don’t charge you admission, nor do we attempt to screen you in any way. However, I’d like to ask you to ask yourselves some hard questions, now that that wonderful night you had in my neighborhood is behind you.

1.Why isn’t your neighborhood sufficiently interesting for you to spend Halloween night there?

2.Why aren’t you working with your neighbors to make Halloween in your neighborhood better for your kids?

3.Do you consider your visit to our neighborhood last night mere Disneyland-like entertainment for you and your kids, or do you consider it to be a learning experience that will help you make your neighborhood and its Halloween better?

4.If you feel like your neighborhood does not have the potential to be a great place for your kids on Halloween night, as well as the rest of the year, do you think you will make this your highest priority the next time you move? If not, why not?

I sincerely hope you came here because you want to learn, not because you want to be entertained. I want our neighborhood to be your Ivy League of Halloween, not your Disneyland.

I want you to soak up everything you can about why our neighborhood works for kids, and then I want you to go home and make your neighborhood better. I want you to spend next Halloween at home with your neighbors, making it a better place for kids.

Or, if you conclude that your neighborhood can never be a great place for kids, I want you to make the huge decision to move. In your new home search, I want you to make quality of neighborhood life for kids your top priority, above the quality or size of the home itself. Then, once you find that home, buy or rent it, and move in, I want you to join with your new neighbors to make it the best place possible for your kids.

If you do one of these two things, you’ll be taking important steps toward making your kids’ lives better. That will make our work in our neighborhood, on Halloween and all year round, far more fulfilling than it already is. And we won’t miss you next year. Really…

Home Buying Etiquette

1. Houses belong to someone even when they are on the market. Owners have a right to know who is asking about their home – wouldn’t you want to know? When you contact a real estate agent or call an office be prepared to give some basic information – name, address, phone number, and whether or not you are pre-approved for a mortgage.


2. If you are not pre-approved for a mortgage, don’t be offended if an agent won’t show you a house. Instead, ask who you can contact to get pre-approved. It’s a waste of everyone’s time and agents have a responsibility to show homes only to qualified buyers. If you’re not ready to get pre-approved, then you’re not ready to look at houses!

3. If you go to an open house be prepared to sign-in and give correct information. If you are under contract with a buyer agent make sure you write that on the sign-in sheet. If you don’t want the agent at house to contact you just write please do not contact next to your information. Refusing to sign-in is rude and sets a tone of distrust – what if you really like the house? You’ve already gotten off on the wrong foot. Giving false information is never ok. Remember, you’re in someone’s home!

4. Houses are shown by appointment, so plan aheadIf someone is living there, they need some notice to pick up and get out – very few people can keep their house ready for visitors with a moment’s notice – can you? Even new construction is shown by appointment – there might be workers at the house, etc.

5. Real estate agents have schedules too. It is not realistic to call an agent or an office from in front of a house and expect an agent come right out to meet you. Imagine calling your lawyer, dentist, hair-dresser, plumber, mechanic, financial planner, or anyone else … and expecting on the spot service!

6. The best thing for you is to set up a meeting with an agent at their office(or other convenient location) so you can talk about your needs and get to know each other. Buying a home is a big investment and can take several months – don’t you owe it to yourself to invest an hour upfront?

7. Buying a home involves the whole family, so it’s ok to bring the kids (although, you will certainly be able to focus better without them…) If you bring them, make sure they understand that they are visiting someone’s home. Keep them by your side at all times, especially in new construction where things are unfinished and may be dangerous. It’s for their safety and for the safety of the home-owners possessions – wouldn’t you feel awful if they broke something? And please don’t let them play with the home-owners’ kids toys – they wouldn’t want a stranger playing with their things.

8. Treat the house with respect. Of course you need to look in closets and cabinets, etc. but dresser drawers, medicine cabinets, personal belongings are off limits. Never sit on someone’s bed or use the master bath – sellers know they give up some privacy when their homes are on the market but again, put yourself in their shoes!

9. Relationships are about trust and mutual respect - loyalty matters. If you are under contract with a real estate agent, always contact that agent when you need information. People can get really impatient sometimes or they don’t want to “bother” their agent so they start calling offices or listing agents demanding information or pretending that they are going to be clients

Call your agent – he/she will call you back! If your agent doesn’t return calls and give you the information you need then find another agent. If you can’t stop yourself from calling an office or listing agent directly, make sure that you disclose that you are working with an agent right away and that you would appreciate some information.

10. Golden Rule/Common Sense – as with everything else, if you treat people (real estate agents) and property the way you want to be treated, the home-buying process will be efficient and the transaction will be a lot easier. If you’re not sure what the protocol is, just ask – we’re here to help!

Sunset Magazine Speaks to Now and Then

The Original California Cuisine, Courtesy of Sunset Magazine

BEFORE Alice Waters picked her first Little Gem lettuce and Wolfgang Puck draped smoked salmon across a pizza, California cuisine meant something else.

The other California cuisine was being served on a million patios in the Golden State by relaxed cooks who grilled thick cuts of beef called tri-tip and built salads from avocado and oranges. They used red chili sauce like roux, ate abalone and oysters, and whipped sticky dates into milkshakes. It was the food of the gold rush and of immigrants, of orchards and sunshine.

And always, there was young, easy-to-drink wine that could be paired with salad or Mexican food, two staples of the patio table.

“It was California cooking before chefs got ahold of it,” said John Carroll, a West Coast food writer.

There to chronicle it — and help create it — was Sunset magazine, the stalwart regional publication that Southern Pacific Railroad executives began in 1898 to lure Easterners to the untamed West. Next week, Sunset has issued a collection of a thousand recipes, many of which helped define that other California cuisine. Although the magazine is Californian to its core, some of the recipes in “The Sunset Cookbook” (Oxmoor House, $34.95) are drawn from the other parts of the West that Sunset covers, like Hawaii and the Southwest. And any state in America might claim zucchini pickles. But laced throughout are some old-school California dishes like guacamole, grilled turkey, cioppino, barbecued oysters, Crab Louis and fish tacos.

Collectively, they summon a way of life that flourished in the postwar boom, when Sunset was a coffee-table staple. In those years the magazine articulated for aspirational newcomers the relaxed, open way people on the West Coast gardened, traveled and ate.

“Instead of being formal like it was back East, where they were worried about china service and having all the right silver, here you could put your bread in a basket and you could eat food outside and you didn’t have to have a maid,” said Linda Anusasananan, who spent 34 years developing recipes for the magazine before she left it in 2005.

“Anyone could be a Californian if they read Sunset,” said Gingi Kinninger, a longtime reader who makes the occasional pilgrimage to the Cliff May-designed ranch house that anchors the Sunset compound in Menlo Park, Calif.

The book comes at a period in which Sunset is getting something of a new life. With the ascent of celebrity chefs, flashy cooking shows on television and online food media, the appeal of Sunset faded — especially among younger readers, according to several chefs and food editors in California.

But its extreme dedication to regional food, its reputation among readers for reliable recipes honed in a skilled test kitchen and its forays into the D.I.Y. ethos of backyard beekeeping and home vinegar making has helped with a rehabilitation. It is, in some ways, the Betty White of food magazines.

Since 2006, Sunset has experienced a 62 percent increase in readers between ages 18 and 34, according to GfK MRI, a media research company. Chefs who typically snap to attention when magazines like Food &  Wine call say they are now hearing from customers when a recipe of theirs appears in Sunset, too.

“I think it is hip again,” said Suzanne Goin, the Los Angeles chef whose restaurants include A.O.C., Lucques and the Hungry Cat. “People talk about it with a different tone in their voice now.”

Ms. Goin’s parents subscribed to Sunset for years, she said, and it influenced her childhood in Los Angeles, which subsequently influenced the way she cooks now.

Her cookbook “Sunday Suppers at Lucques” has a recipe for date shakes that is based on the rich, sweet drinks she used to have during pit stops on the highway to Palm Springs. She also substitutes tri-tip for a T-bone in a steak Florentine recipe. The tri-tip, a triangular cut from the bottom of the sirloin, can be hard to find outside California.

In the Sunset book, a recipe for barbecued tri-tip comes straight out of the traditional preparation found in the Santa Maria Valley, down to a suggestion to cook it over burning red oak.

“It’s very simply seasoned,” said Margo True, Sunset’s food editor. “They use garlic powder, for God’s sake, and dehydrated parsley. But it doesn’t taste right unless you use it.”

The book, like the magazine, tries to stay true to the origins of its recipes. It is by no means a historical book, although it does draw on the vast Sunset archives. (The magazine’s first enchilada recipe? A stacked New Mexican version in 1922.)

“The Sunset Cookbook” also reflects California’s changing demographics. Mexico is well represented, of course, and so is Vietnam and, to a lesser degree, the Philippines. Pho and the California roll even made it onto the list of 24 iconic Western dishes in Ms. True’s introduction to the book. It’s very much in keeping with the sensibility of Sunset and its longtime publisher, the late Lawrence Lane. He figured if you were adventurous enough to move west, you were adventurous enough to experiment and explore new foods — even if you needed a little encouragement.

“The first time they would ever see an artichoke was when they moved west,” said Ms. True, who noted that the magazine pushed readers toward new foods with a decidedly gentle hand. “There was this sweetness of tone, like don’t be afraid,” she said.

Still, the magazine and many of its earlier cookbooks were edited from a decidedly Caucasian — or at least well-assimilated immigrant — point of view.

“It was sort of Anglicized California,” said Jacqueline Higuera McMahan, who writes a long-running column for The San Francisco Chronicle about California rancho cooking. Rancho cuisine comes from the estates, or ranchos, of California’s early Spanish settlers, and is characterized by chilies and a perfectionist’s approach to barbecuing meat.

“That’s kind of what people wanted in many ways, and still do,” she said. “How can I make the real cooking of California but not go too deep into one culture or another?”
Of course, she subscribes.

“What Sunset has done really well is reflect the changes in the way people in the West live,” said Barbara Fairchild, who will retire as editor in chief of Bon Appétit in November. “It’s a style of living and cooking that really is different.” She moved from the East Coast to Los Angeles with her family in the 1960s. It was the first time she had ever seen an artichoke or an avocado. Her father began grilling over the big built-in brick barbecue while the children cooled off in the above-ground pool.

Dinners, especially in the summer, were salads. Red meat gave way to chicken or fish — quite a radical departure for many family menus then.

Today, if you were to go to Ms. Fairchild’s house for dinner looking for a quintessential California meal, she would serve chili-rubbed grilled chicken, a pot of long-simmered pinto beans and a large green salad shot through with avocado and orange, and seasoned with red wine vinaigrette. There would be a pitcher of from-scratch margaritas. For dessert, fresh fruit and a lemon bar or maybe a brownie.

“The fresh with the indulgence — that’s very California,” she said.

What would Ms. True serve you if you wanted a quintessential old California meal? She would start with guacamole, move onto a Santa Maria tri-tip barbecue and end with a mini-date shake and either sopapillas or fortune cookies — a California invention and, she said, the most challenging recipe in the book.
But then again, it could be warm soba noodles, grilled ahi citrus salad and Mexican chocolate ice cream.
Sunset is now less for the wide-eyed newcomer and more for people who embrace cooking in a state varied enough to put kimchi in a taco or chorizo on a pizza.

“The whole point was to help people figure out how to live here, because everyone came from somewhere else,” Ms. True said. “Now it’s to remind them how lucky they are to live here.”

Source: NY Times By KIM SEVERSON

Forbes Magazine List of Most Expensive Zip Codes

America's Most Expensive ZIP Codes
Francesca Levy, FORBES

2 94027, Atherton, Calif.

15 94022, Los Altos Hills, Calif.

15 94022, Los Altos, Calif.

18 94024, Los Altos Hills, Calif.

18 94024, Los Altos, Calif.

20 94010, Hillsborough, Calif.

31 94028, Portola Valley, Calif.

38 95030, Los Gatos, Calif.

41 94062, Woodside, Calif.

73 94301, Palo Alto, Calif.

83 95070, Saratoga, Calif.

84 95030, Monte Sereno, Calif.

92 94123, San Francisco, Calif.

151 94306, Palo Alto, Calif.

10 Reasons Why it's Good to Buy a Home

Enough with the doom and gloom about homeownership.

Sure, maybe there's more pain to come in the housing market. But when Time magazine starts running covers that declare "Owning a home may no longer make economic sense," it's time to say: Enough is enough. This is what "capitulation" looks like. Everyone has given up.

But it's not enough just to be contrarian. So here are 10 reasons why it's good to buy a home.

1. You can get a good deal. Especially if you play hardball. This is a buyer's market. Most of the other buyers have now vanished, as the tax credits on purchases have just expired. We're four to five years into the biggest housing bust in modern history. And prices have come down a long way— about 30% from their peak, according to Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller Index, which tracks home prices in 20 big cities. Yes, it's mixed. New York is only down 20%. Arizona has halved. Will prices fall further? Sure, they could. You'll never catch the bottom. It doesn't really matter so much in the long haul.

Where is fair value? Fund manager Jeremy Grantham at GMO, who predicted the bust with remarkable accuracy, said two years ago that home prices needed to fall another 17% to reach fair value in relation to household incomes. Case-Shiller since then: Down 18%.

2. Mortgages are cheap. You can get a 30-year loan for around 4.3%. What's not to like? These are the lowest rates on record. As recently as two years ago they were about 6.3%. That drop slashes your monthly repayment by a fifth. If inflation picks up, you won't see these mortgage rates again in your lifetime. And if we get deflation, and rates fall further, you can refi.

3. You'll save on taxes. You can deduct the mortgage interest from your income taxes. You can deduct your real estate taxes. And you'll get a tax break on capital gains—if any—when you sell. Sure, you'll need to do your math. You'll only get the income tax break if you itemize your deductions, and many people may be better off taking the standard deduction instead. The breaks are more valuable the more you earn, and the bigger your mortgage. But many people will find that these tax breaks mean owning costs them less, often a lot less, than renting.

4. It'll be yours. You can have the kitchen and bathrooms you want. You can move the walls, build an extension—zoning permitted—or paint everything bright orange. Few landlords are so indulgent; for renters, these types of changes are often impossible. You'll feel better about your own place if you own it than if you rent. Many years ago, when I was working for a political campaign in England, I toured a working-class northern town. Mrs. Thatcher had just begun selling off public housing to the tenants. "You can tell the ones that have been bought," said my local guide. "They've painted the front door. It's the first thing people do when they buy." It was a small sign that said something big.

5. You'll get a better home. In many parts of the country it can be really hard to find a good rental. All the best places are sold as condos. Money talks. Once again, this is a case by case issue: In Miami right now there are so many vacant luxury condos that owners will rent them out for a fraction of the cost of owning. But few places are so favored. Generally speaking, if you want the best home in the best neighborhood, you're better off buying.

6. It offers some inflation protection. No, it's not perfect. But studies by Professor Karl "Chip" Case (of Case-Shiller), and others, suggest that over the long-term housing has tended to beat inflation by a couple of percentage points a year. That's valuable inflation insurance, especially if you're young and raising a family and thinking about the next 30 or 40 years. In the recent past, inflation-protected government bonds, or TIPS, offered an easier form of inflation insurance. But yields there have plummeted of late. That also makes homeownership look a little better by contrast.

7. It's risk capital. No, your home isn't the stock market and you shouldn't view it as the way to get rich. But if the economy does surprise us all and start booming, sooner or later real estate prices will head up again, too. One lesson from the last few years is that stocks are incredibly hard for most normal people to own in large quantities—for practical as well as psychological reasons. Equity in a home is another way of linking part of your portfolio to the long-term growth of the economy—if it happens—and still managing to sleep at night.

8. It's forced savings. If you can rent an apartment for $2,000 month instead of buying one for $2,400 a month, renting may make sense. But will you save that $400 for your future? A lot of people won't. Most, I dare say. Once again, you have to do your math, but the part of your mortgage payment that goes to principal repayment isn't a cost. You're just paying yourself by building equity. As a forced monthly saving, it's a good discipline.

9. There is a lot to choose from. There is a glut of homes in most of the country. The National Association of Realtors puts the current inventory at around 4 million homes. That's below last year's peak, but well above typical levels, and enough for about a year's worth of sales. More keeping coming onto the market, too, as the banks slowly unload their inventory of unsold properties. That means great choice, as well as great prices.

10. Sooner or later, the market will clear. Demand and supply will meet. The population is forecast to grow by more than 100 million people over the next 40 years. That means maybe 40 million new households looking for homes. Meanwhile, this housing glut will work itself out. Many of the homes will be bought. But many more will simply be destroyed—either deliberately, or by inaction. This is already happening. Even two years ago, when I toured the housing slump in western Florida, I saw bankrupt condo developments that were fast becoming derelict. And, finally, a lot of the "glut" simply won't matter: It's concentrated in a few areas, like Florida and Nevada. Unless you live there, the glut won't have any long-term impact on housing supply in your town.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Brett Arends.