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I saw the decade in, when it seemed The world could change at the blink of an eye And if anything then there’s your sign of the times I was alive and I waited I was alive and I waited for this I am indebted to the band Jesus Jones for those lyrics, from a song that was popular in maybe 1991, but feels viscerally appropriate for today. Eighteen years ago we were in a war with Iraq, in a recession, but it was clearly still so twentieth century. A decade later, there was another tectonic shift in our culture…

Recently at the farmers’ market I visit, I came across a variety of grapefruit known as a “cocktail.” On my quest for the perfect morning citrus treat, this one, apparently a cross between a grapefruit and an orange approaches holy grail status. Wow, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have one of these in my yard. So I inquired at my local nursery for the species, and of course no one had ever heard of it. All right, move on, I thought. Then this morning, while enjoying another sweet, juicy, near-perfect hemisphere, gingerly picking out the seeds with my…

As Aretha Franklin sang “My Country ’Tis of Thee” at President Barack Obama’s swearing in ceremony last Tuesday, ABC News panned to images of the Lincoln Memorial, the Statue of Liberty, Capitol Hill and other scenes of architecture and nature from across the nation. It was hard not to be moved, not only by the occasion, but by those images of great art in the midst of the swelling music. As those images flashed, it occurred to me that every one of those sculptures shown was by an artist from the Nineteenth Century. That was art that had something real…

  Last week I had the pleasure of attending at least one day of the National Multi-Housing Council Conference in La Quinta, California. You know what? I have to tell you: I’m certainly glad that developers, as a rule, are optimists. Well, maybe not the numbers guys, but certainly the visionary guys. It provided some comfort to hear many of the seasoned veterans remind us that, thought this particular downturn had a unique brutality, they had all been through it before, and knew that if, rather, as they survived they could look forward to making a lot of money in…

Palm Springs, Calif. The just concluded Apartment Strategies Conference (ASC), which is part of the National Multihousing Council’s programming is a study in contrasts. The speakers throughout the day commented on real estate and capital market issues and while what could pass for highlights and good news were few, this meeting was a remarkable transformation over prior years and some other industry conferences. One might have had the feeling from the content in the presentations that bad news and industry stress rules the day, but in fact, I believe there was a different message. No one who attended the ASC…

It’s a remarkable thing when, twice in one week, I hear news stories about apartment rental rates dropping in Los Angeles. Seriously, what does it take in the cultural context for a piece about falling rents to become a lead story? There’s no question that rents went up in conjunction with the condo housing bubble, though I’m not really sure what the connection was, exactly. Were there enough people priced out of ownership opportunities who nevertheless could afford luxury-level rents? In the interest of full disclosure, my livelihood is derived from the design and construction of apartment communities. It is…

There’s a great line in Young Frankenstein, when the crew is exhuming a body from a creepy cemetery, in the middle of the night, to harvest sundry useful parts, where Dr. Frankenstein asks, “How? How could this possibly be any worse?” to which Igor offers the cheery rejoinder, “Oh, I don’t know . . . it could be raining.” Naturally, thunder cracks, lightning flashes, and a downpour ensues. Be careful what you wish for. Ah, such is the case with Washington’s tireless printing press. As senator Everett Dirksen once supposedly remarked, “a billion here, a billion there; pretty soon you’re…

The prospect of a full blown commercial conundrum is now in full view, as news outlets continue to report stresses in all major property sectors. With the industrial, office, retail and multifamily property groups vying to avoid the ranking for the worst of the bunch, we can take some solace as an industry in being at the end of the recessionary trough. It can only get better from here. This week, I’m in Palm Springs, Calif. for the National Mult Housing Council’s Apartment Strategies Conference, along with the NMHC Annual Meeting. I’m planning to be pretty diligent about taking notes…

As President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office, it appears he might face an uphill battle in getting his pick for Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, through confirmation hearings quickly. Geithner, currently the president of the Fed’s New York bank, has come under scrutiny over some personal tax questions, and his confirmation hearing—originally scheduled for Thursday—has been delayed until after Obama’s inauguration next week. With troubling economic indicators still being released on a seemingly regular basis, many are of the mind that, should Geithner’s nomination be held up, Obama should select a new nominee in order to ensure that the Treasury…

I remember the recession of the late-1980s-early-90s. Wave upon wave of news kept coming in 1989-‘90 of layoffs at corporations. I thought at the time, “They are laying off so many people that there will be no one left to buy the goods they produce.” Sure enough, by the early 1990s, the situation was pretty bad. But one bright spot at the time was the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) program, which played a large part in driving this magazine’s recovery. The reason? Although the market-rate apartment industry at the time was not doing so well, money was still…