housing
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How to not buy anything ever again
Photo: Toban BlackNeither a borrower nor a lender be? Stuff it, old man. Shareable has collected a primer on “collaborative consumption,” i.e. the fine art of consensual mooching. At the risk of sounding like a dangerous commie: It turns out there’s basically no reason to be the sole owner of anything ever again. Among the […]
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The yuppies of the future live in yurts
It’s no longer enough for your Futuristic Future Dwelling of the Future to be eco-friendly, alternative-powered, and 100 percent recyclable. You also have to furnish a portfolio of computer-rendered yurt-porn, showing the glamorous lifestyle available in your tiny pod home. “Lifepod” is a small, sustainable prefab that can be packed up and shipped anywhere in […]
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Listen up, hipsters: Your next home will arrive on a truck
When we last checked in with prefab housing, it was reeling from the market crash, and green modular homes were turning into yet another thing you could only have if you were rich. But the modular revolution is back on track, with a rise in popularity for eco-friendly prefab houses.
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Ten affordable neighborhoods-in-progress will design to LEED-ND standards under grant program
A series of grant winners are leading efforts to strengthen surrounding neighborhoods.
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The Tea Party's 'livability' paranoia
Stephanie Mencimer reports on the hilarious and frightening Tea Party campaign against sustainable development.
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6 ways to solve the ‘renter’s dilemma’ for home energy
If renters aren't staying and landlords aren't paying utility bills, who pays for home-energy improvements?
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U.S. homes are right-sizing and greening
Are McMansions going the way of the Hummer? Not entirely, Kaid Benfield suspects, but he does think demand for them is dropping.
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9 things I learned by shadowing a home-energy inspector
Everyone knows that weatherization is the super-duper-est economic policy ever. But forget policy for a moment. Let's look at how it works out in the real world.
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Ruin porn, exurban sprawl edition
A while back, Sarah noted the proliferation of Detroit "ruin porn" -- images and films that depict abandoned houses, crumbling factories, and desperately unemployed masses without showing that intelligent life does, in fact, remain in the city. There's something of a parallel trend for sprawl: illustrations of the overbuilt, over-mortgaged empty subdivisions littering exurban America. The implied message is quite often that these places were built carelessly and are unaffordable, unsustainable, and damn near unlovable.