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hakesbros · 2 years ago

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New Development Homes & Communities By Ashton Woods

Community improvements and recreational options and amenities described are based mostly upon current development plans which are subject to change and which are beneath no obligation to be accomplished. Actual place of house on lot shall new homes san antonio be determined by the site plan and plot plan. Floor plans, interiors and elevations are artist's conception or mannequin renderings and aren't intended to indicate particular detailing. Floor plans are the property of PulteGroup, Inc. and its associates and are protected by U.S. copyright legal guidelines.

Users may not reproduce or redistribute the information found on this web site. All data offered is deemed dependable however just isn't assured by SABOR and ought to be independently verified. Buying or promoting actual estate, for a majority of traders, is amongst the most essential decisions they new home builders san antonio may make. Choosing an actual property professional/counselor continues to be a significant part of this course of. They are well-informed about crucial components that affect your particular market areas, similar to adjustments in market circumstances, market forecasts, client attitudes, greatest areas, timing, and interest rates.

The average lease for a 2-bedroom house in San Antonio, TX is at present $1,425 (a 29% increase in comparison with the earlier year). The scarcity of construction staff means that home costs are nonetheless going up while it takes longer to fulfill demand than it does in Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston. The matter was only made worse by the number of individuals that moved all the way down to Houston to help homes for sale san antonio in rebuilding there after Hurricane Harvey. As a result of the nationwide recession, which lasted from December 2007 until June 2009, payrolls within the HMA declined in 2009 by 15,900 jobs or 1.eight %. The results of the nationwide recession had been average within the HMA, partially because of sturdy progress within the schooling and well being services sector and the soundness of the government sector.

"The economic circumstances in place in the high 10 U.S. markets, all of which are located within the South, present the support for home costs to climb by no less than 5% in 2023." "Half of the country might expertise small price features, whereas the other half might even see slight price declines," Yun mentioned. "However, markets in California may be the exception, with San Francisco, for instance, more likely to register worth drops of 10–15%." Including home shopping for and promoting, commercial, worldwide, NAR member data, and technology.

In common, homes in Oakland Estates are about $135,000 – $750,000 and sit on 2-acre tons with four bedrooms and three loos. It can also be an excellent area for rental property funding as greater than 85% of the inhabitants comprises renters. The typical home worth in Oakland Estates is $387,865 and home home builders in san antonio values have gone up 24.6% over the past year. The median listing home price in Oakland Estates was $431.3K in April 2022, trending up 10.6% year-over-year. Oakland Estates is a neighborhood is in Bexar County and is considered one of the finest locations to live in Texas.

Built to Honor recognizes deserving military personnel who have been injured during their time period of service by providing mortgage-free homes to veterans and their households. As an organization that builds homes and communities, we perceive the worth of being a good neighbor. When you be part homes for sale san antonio tx of our record, you comply with being “in the know” by way of email – in addition to calls & texts should you share your phone quantity. This web site is utilizing a security service to protect itself from online assaults.

#real estate

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gslocks123 · 5 years ago

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What Makes a Great Locksmith?

Locksmiths are professional people who are experts in fixing all kinds of locks along with installing different types of security systems. They play a very important role and their profession should not be belittled. They have varied roles depending on the different need of different people. The skills and specializations of locksmiths vary from one another. Locksmiths can specialize in both residential and commercial locksmith services. Whatever locksmith service you need, you should be careful in choosing the locksmith to hire and you should set that certain set of standards for you not to waste on some who render unprofessional service.

While these locksmiths acquire a special role for our varied needs when it comes to locks, they are also specialized in offering light automotive locksmith services like opening locked doors and duplicating or making new keys. Meanwhile, commercial locksmith apparently specializes in government and corporate clients who usually need high-end and sophisticated lock facilities and pieces of equipment. They are most likely hired to ensure that security in the commercial facilities is ensured.

In today's market, a locksmith can understand and address all types of problems that include fixing locks along with ensuring security for people who opt for these locksmith services. With the high technology locksmith pieces of equipment available, locksmiths now have the ability to design and manage key control system important for establishments or homes which are in need of high-end security systems.

If you are unfortunately locked out of your car and are searching for an expert locksmith to help you with your problem, then it is necessary that you carry out some research on their background in order to prevent falling prey to some fraud companies. It is obvious that you don't want to get the service of a locksmith who fails provide the best service or the locksmiths who are old-fashioned and do not have adequate knowledge about the latest techniques in Locksmithing. While choosing a good locksmith, the first thing that you will need to assess is their education and experience and license. This is because a lot of situations can arise while dealing with them during an emergency car lockout.

If you are looking for an emergency locksmith, the first step will include engaging oneself in proper market research. With the blessing of the internet, getting reviews and finding a good locksmith is a breezy affair.

It is important for you to understand that settling with the first lock expert that you will encounter may not always be a good idea. By engaging oneself and going for a proper online research, you will be able to find a long list of locksmiths in your area. Different situations may arise like losing your house key or facing a car lockout situation, an emergency locksmith can help you out on this. These people can easily open your car or make a replacement for your house keys faster, but they might ask for a higher fee. This is the reason why it is best that you find one before these situations take place.

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#locksmith #locksmith services #residential locksmith #mobile locksmith #car locksmith #commercial locksmith

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gadgetgirl71 · 5 years ago

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Amazon First Reads for May 2020

It’s that time yet again, to choose one of eight books that Amazon First Reads lets Amazon Prime Members download for free. I always look forward to the beginning of each month to see what is on offer.

This months books are:

Contemporary Fiction

If You Must Know by Jamie Beck Pages: 362, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: Life turns upside down for two sisters in Wall Street Journal bestselling author Jamie Beck’s emotional novel about how secrets and differences can break—or bind—a family.

Sisters Amanda Foster and Erin Turner have little in common except the childhood bedroom they once shared and the certainty each feels that her way of life is best. Amanda follows the rules—at the school where she works; in her community; and as a picture-perfect daughter, wife, and mother-to-be. Erin follows her heart—in love and otherwise—living a bohemian lifestyle on a shoestring budget and honouring her late father’s memory with a passion for music and her fledgling bath-products business.

The sisters are content leading separate but happy lives in their hometown of Potomac Point until everything is upended by lies that force them to confront unsettling truths about their family, themselves, and each other. For sisters as different as these two, building trust doesn’t come easily—especially with one secret still between them—but it may be the only way to save their family.

Thriller

Don’t Make a Sound by T R Ragan, Pages: 285, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: Her own past could be a reporter’s biggest story in this twisting thriller about murder and family secrets by the New York Times bestselling author T.R. Ragan.

Plagued by traumatic childhood memories, crime reporter Sawyer Brooks still struggles to gain control of her rage, her paranoia, and her life. Now, after finally getting promoted at work, she is forced to return home and face her past.

River Rock is where she’d been abandoned by her two older sisters to suffer alone, and in silence, the unspeakable abuses of her family. It’s also where Sawyer’s best friend disappeared and two teenage girls were murdered. Three cold cases dead and buried with the rest of the town’s secrets.

When another girl is slain in a familiar grisly fashion, Sawyer is determined to put an end to the crimes. Pulled back into the horrors of her family history, Sawyer must reconcile with her estranged sisters, who both have shattering memories of their own. As Sawyer’s investigation leads to River Rock’s darkest corners, what will prove more dangerous—what she knows of the past or what she has yet to discover?

Biography

Gender Rebels by Anneka Harry, Pages: 277, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: Meet the unsung sheroes of history: the diverse, defiant and daring (wo)men who changed the rules, and their identities, to get sh*t done.

You’ll encounter Kit Cavanagh, the swaggering Irish dragoon who was the first woman to be buried in London with full military honours; marauding eighteenth-century pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who collided on the high seas after swapping their petticoats for pantaloons; Ellen Craft, an escaped slave who masqueraded as a white master to spirit her husband-to-be to freedom; and Billy Tipton, the swinging jazz musician, who led a double life as an adult, taking five wives along the way. Then there are the women who still have to dress like men to live their best lives, like the inspirational football-lovers in Iran, who risk everything to take their place in the stands.

A call to action for the modern world, this book celebrates the #GenderRebels who paved the way for women everywhere to be soldiers and spies; kings and queens; firefighters, doctors, pilots; and a Swiss Army knife’s-worth more. These superbly spirited (wo)men all had one thing in common: they defied the rules to progress in a man’s world.

Book Club Fiction

Sorry I Missed You by Suzy Krause, Pages: 315, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: A poignant and heartwarming novel about friendship, ghosting, and searching for answers to life’s mysteries.

When Mackenzie, Sunna, and Maude move into a converted rental house, they are strangers with only one thing in common—important people in their lives have “ghosted” them. Mackenzie’s sister, Sunna’s best friend, and Maude’s fiancé—all gone with no explanation.

So when a mangled, near-indecipherable letter arrives in their shared mailbox—hinting at long-awaited answers—each tenant assumes it’s for her. The mismatched trio decides to stake out the coffee shop named in the letter—the only clue they have—and in the process, a bizarre kinship forms. But the more they learn about each other, the more questions (and suspicions) they begin to have. All the while, creepy sounds and strange happenings around the property suggest that the ghosts from their pasts might not be all that’s haunting them…

Will any of the housemates find the closure they are looking for? Or are some doors meant to remain closed?

Quirky, humorous, and utterly original, Sorry I Missed You is the perfect read for anyone who has ever felt haunted by their past (or by anything else).

Historical Fiction

Golden Poppies by Laila Ibrahim, Pages: 297, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: From the bestselling author of Yellow Crocus and Mustard Seed comes the empowering novel of two generations of American women connected by the past and fighting for a brighter future.

It’s 1894. Jordan Wallace and Sadie Wagner appear to have little in common. Jordan, a middle-aged black teacher, lives in segregated Chicago. Two thousand miles away, Sadie, the white wife of an ambitious German businessman, lives in more tolerant Oakland, California. But years ago, their families intertwined on a plantation in Virginia. There, Jordan’s and Sadie’s mothers developed a bond stronger than blood, despite the fact that one was enslaved and the other was the privileged daughter of the plantation’s owner.

With Jordan’s mother on her deathbed, Sadie leaves her disapproving husband to make the arduous train journey with her mother to Chicago. But the reunion between two families is soon fraught with personal and political challenges.

As the harsh realities of racial divides and the injustices of the Gilded Age conspire to hold them back, the women find they need each other more than ever. Their courage, their loyalty, and the ties that bind their families will be tested. Amid the tumult of a quickly changing nation, their destiny depends on what they’re willing to risk for liberation.

Legal Thriller

Legacy of Lies by Robert Bailey, Pages: 329, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: A small-town attorney takes on prejudice and corruption in this powerful legal thriller.

Small-town lawyer Bocephus Haynes comes home late one night to find District Attorney General Helen Lewis waiting for him. Her ex-husband has just been killed. She’s about to be arrested for his murder. And she wants Bo to represent her.

There’s a lot working against them. Just before his death, Helen’s ex-husband threatened to reveal a dark secret from her past. Bo has been in a tailspin since his wife’s death. What’s more, his whole life has been defined by a crime committed against his family, and he continues to face prejudice as the only African American litigator in Pulaski, Tennessee.

Bo’s back is against the wall, and Helen resigns herself to a dismal fate—but a stunning discovery throws everything into chaos. There’s a chance for justice, but to achieve it, the cost might be too much for Bo to bear.

Family Saga

A Decent Family by Rosa Ventrella, Pages: 251, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: For fans of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series comes a captivating family saga focused on a willful young woman’s struggles against her oppressive small town by acclaimed Italian author Rosa Ventrella.

In old Bari, everyone knows Maria De Santis as “Malacarne,” the bad seed. Nicknamed for her dark features, volcanic temperament, and resistance to rules, the headstrong girl can only imagine the possibilities that lie outside her poverty-stricken neighborhood.

Growing up with her mother, two brothers, and a tyrannical father, Maria must abide. She does—amid the squalid life to which she was born, the cruelties of her small-minded neighbors, and violence in a constant threat of eruption. As she reconciles her need for escape with the allegiance she feels toward her family, Maria has her salvations: her secret friend, Michele, son of a rival family and every bit the outsider she is, and her passion for books, which may someday take her far, far away.

In this exquisitely rendered and sensory-rich novel, Rosa Ventrella explores the limits of loyalty, the redeeming power of friendship and love, and the fire in the soul of one woman who was born to break free.

Literary Fiction

A Man by Keiichiro Hirano, Pages: 295, Publication Date: 1 June 2020

Synopsis: A man follows another man’s trail of lies in a compelling psychological story about the search for identity, by Japan’s award-winning literary sensation Keiichiro Hirano in his first novel to be translated into English.

Akira Kido is a divorce attorney whose own marriage is in danger of being destroyed by emotional disconnect. With a midlife crisis looming, Kido’s life is upended by the reemergence of a former client, Rié Takemoto. She wants Kido to investigate a dead man—her recently deceased husband, Daisuké. Upon his death she discovered that he’d been living a lie. His name, his past, his entire identity belonged to someone else, a total stranger. The investigation draws Kido into two intriguing mysteries: finding out who Rié’s husband really was and discovering more about the man he pretended to be. Soon, with each new revelation, Kido will come to share the obsession with—and the lure of—erasing one life to create a new one.

In A Man, winner of Japan’s prestigious Yomiuri Prize for Literature, Keiichiro Hirano explores the search for identity, the ambiguity of memory, the legacies with which we live and die, and the reconciliation of who you hoped to be with who you’ve actually become.

***Which book will you choose? I can’t make up my mind between: “If You Must Know and Sorry I Missed You”. Let me know which book you think I should choose.***

#amazonfirstreads #amazonkindle #amazonprimemembers #literary fiction #familysaga #legal thriller #HistoricalFiction #bookclubfiction #biography #thriller #contemporary fiction

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templetuesday · 6 years ago

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NEWS ROUNDUP: February 2019

There has been an abundance of Temple news over the past few weeks. Rather than make separate posts about each news item, I’ve decided to post them all together.

SCHEDULED TEMPLE DEDICATIONS

Rome Italy Temple

The Church is currently holding the open house for the Rome Italy Temple. The open house runs from 28 January to 16 February 2019, except for Sundays. A youth devotional will be broadcast to meetinghouses in the temple district on Saturday, 9 March 2019, and the temple will be dedicated from 10-12 March 2019. The Rome Italy Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the October 2008 General Conference. It will be the first operating temple in Italy, the twelfth in Europe, and the 162nd operating temple worldwide. (Photo from lds.org)

Fortaleza Brazil Temple

The Church has announced the dates for the open house and dedication of the Fortaleza Brazil Temple. The open house is scheduled to run from 27 April to 18 May 2019, excluding Sundays. A special youth devotional will be held on 1 June 2019, and the temple will be dedicated the following day, Sunday, 2 June 2019. The Fortaleza Brazil Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the October 2009 General Conference. It will be the seventh operating temple in Brazil and the 20th in South America. (Photo from lds.org)

Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple

The Church has announced the open house and dedication dates of the Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple. The open house will run from 3 August to 17 August 2019, excluding Sundays. A youth devotional will be broadcast to meetinghouses in the temple district on Saturday, 31 September 2019, and the temple will be dedicated on Sunday, 1 October 2019. The Port-au-Prince Haiti Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2015 General Conference. It will be the first temple in Haiti and the second operating temple in the Caribbean. (Photo from lds.org)

SCHEDULED TEMPLE REDEDICATIONS

Memphis Tennessee Temple

The Memphis Tennessee Temple will be rededicated on Sunday, 5 May 2019, in a private ceremony, by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. The Memphis Tennessee Temple has been closed since 29 September 2017 for extensive renovations to the interior and exterior. The Memphis Temple was the 80th temple in the Church and the first of two temples currently built in Tennessee. (Photo from lds.org)

Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple

The Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple will be rededicated on Sunday, 19 May 2019, in a private ceremony, by President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency. The Oklahoma City Oklahoma Temple has been closed since 15 October 2017 for extensive renovations. The Oklahoma City Temple was the 95th temple in the Church and the first temple built in Oklahoma. No official rendering of the renovated temple has been released at this time, but it will be similar in appearance to the renovated Memphis Tennessee Temple pictured above.

Oakland California Temple

The Church has announced open house and rededication dates for the Oakland California Temple. The open house will be held from 11 May to 1 June 2019, excluding Sundays. A youth devotional will be held on Saturday, 15 June 2019, and the temple will be rededicated in three sessions on Sunday, 16 June 2019. The Oakland California Temple has been closed since 18 February 2018 for renovations intended to bring the building up to code and to refresh the interior furnishings. The Oakland Temple was the 13th operating temple in the Church and the second to be completed in California. Including the Oakland Temple, there are currently seven temples in California with an eighth temple announced and awaiting construction. (Photo from lds.org)

TEMPLE GROUNDBREAKINGS

Urdaneta Philippines Temple

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for the Urdaneta Philippines Temple on 16 January 2019. The Urdaneta Philippines Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the October 2010 General Conference. Including the Urdaneta Temple, there are currently three operating temples in the Philippines and four announced or under construction. (Photos from lds.org)

Bangkok Thailand Temple

Elder Robert C. Gay of the Presidency of the Seventy presided over the groundbreaking ceremony for the Bangkok Thailand Temple on 26 January 2019. The site dedicatory prayer was offered by Elder David F. Evans, president of the Asia Area. The Bangkok Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2015 General Conference. The Bangkok Thailand Temple is one of two temples planned for mainland southeast Asia, and is the first to break ground. (Photos from lds.org)

SCHEDULED TEMPLE GROUNDBREAKINGS

Pocatello Idaho Temple

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Pocatello Idaho Temple will be held on Saturday, 16 March 2019. The ceremony will be broadcast by Church satellite to meetinghouses in the temple district. The Pocatello Idaho Temple was announced by President Thomas S. Monson during the April 2017 General Conference. The Pocatello Temple will be the sixth temple built in Idaho. (Photo from lds.org)

San Juan Puerto Rico Temple

The San Juan Puerto Rico Temple groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Saturday, 4 May 2019. Elder Walter F. González, president of the Caribbean Area, will preside over the ceremony. The groundbreaking ceremony will be broadcast by Church satellite to meetinghouses in the temple district. The San Juan Puerto Rico Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2018 General conference. The San Juan Temple will be the third temple in the Caribbean and the first for Puerto Rico. (Photo from lds.org)

Yigo Guam Temple

The Yigo Guam Temple groundbreaking ceremony will be held on Saturday, 4 May 2019. Elder Yoon Hwan Choi, president of the Asia North Area, will preside over the ceremony. The groundbreaking ceremony will be broadcast by Church satellite to meetinghouses in the temple district. The Yigo Guam Temple was announced by President Russell M. Nelson during the October 2018 General conference. The Yigo Temple will be the first temple built in Micronesia. (Photo from lds.org)

SCHEDULED TEMPLE RENOVATIONS

Hong Kong China Temple

The Church has announced that the Hong Kong China Temple will close for renovations on 8 July 2019. Additional details will be shared as they become available. The Hong Kong China Temple is the 48th operating temple in the Church, and serves members of the Church in most of southeast Asia, including Hong Kong, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Mongolia, Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Macau, and Sri Lanka. (Photo from lds.org)

St. George Utah Temple

The Church has announced that the St. George Utah Temple will be closing for extensive renovations on 4 November 2019. The structural integrity will be reinforced, and the mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems will all be upgrated. More details will be announced later this year. It is anticipated that the temple will be closed until mid-2022. The St. George Utah Temple was the first temple constructed in the Church that is still in operation. President Russell M. Nelson announced in the October 2018 General Conference that the Church will be renovating the “pioneer-era” temples in the upcoming years, and the St. George Temple is the first of these temples to have a renovation closure announced. (Photo from lds.org)

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berniesrevolution · 6 years ago

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IN THESE TIMES

San Fransisco--Tensions over the housing affordabilty crisis were on full display at an April 3 rally against a California housing development bill, SB 827. Low-income housing activists, largely seniors and people of color, crowded the steps of San Francisco’s City Hall to protest a measure they believed would displace their communities.

When a white counter-protester, Sonja Trauss, waded into the crowd for a photo op next to their signs, she got into a physical altercation and was removed by a sheriff’s deputy. Trauss says she was shoved.

The 36-year-old has gained national acclaim as the founder of the YIMBY movement, as in “Yes, In My Backyard.” YIMBYs are self-described “grassroots, pro-housing” agitators who have become a major presence in high-cost, rapidly gentrifying markets like San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City and Seattle. Their strategy is grounded in the free-market logic of supply and demand: Build more housing and housing costs will go down.

YIMBYs pose themselves as the antidote to the problem of not-in-my-backyard-ism. In San Francisco, that NIMBY stereotype has a basis in reality: “Concerned” neighborhood groups have, time and again, blocked new housing for reasons that range from aesthetic distaste to pearl-clutching about crime rates.

But as Trauss and her fellow YIMBYs chanted “Read the bill!” on the steps of City Hall, NIMBYs weren’t the target. Housing activists of color were. Charles Dupigny, the Black co-director of the group Affordable Divis (short for Divisadero, a major thoroughfare), shouted over the YIMBY noise: “I say to these individuals: Start doing some research, look into who actually gets those homes, look at ... who’s behind the bills.”

The San Francisco Examiner reported that a 77-year-old woman with the Chinatown Community Tenants Association “was so disturbed by the YIMBY shouting that she later fainted and was ferried by ambulance” to the hospital. “I think the YIMBY have no heart,” Association President Wing Hoo Leung told the newspaper.

Rally speaker Shanti Singh, a member of the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), tweeted afterward, “What I saw today happen to Black, Latinx and Asian activists from working-class SF communities when they tried to speak about their struggle ... was absolutely infuriating and pathetic. Shouted over by white people. Is there a more perfect encapsulation of our urban history?”

Though only about three years old, the YIMBY movement Trauss helped create has become one of the loudest voices in Bay Area and Los Angeles housing. YIMBYs regularly show up at city planning meetings, issue influential voting guides, sue local governments to overturn housing restrictions and have drafted controversial California housing bills, such as 827. he alifornia playbook is being duplicated lsewhere; the site YIMBY.wiki lists more than 100 YIMBY-identified groups in cities around the world, from YIMBY Uppsala in Sweden, to Better Boulder in Colorado, to Walkable Princeton in New Jersey.

YIMBYism has caught fire, in part, because of the need for housing solutions. According to the latest annual report of the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, one-third of people in the United States spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent or mortgages. In Los Angeles and New York City, that proportion rises to more than 44 percent of residents. In the YIMBY stronghold of San Francisco, it’s 38 percent.

YIMBYs seem to offer a straightforward prescription that doesn’t upend the free market, and national media outlets love it. In 2017, Politico named Trauss one of the “Politico 50”—people whose ideas are “blowing up American politics.” The Atlantic lauded the “progressivist” movement’s “cooperative” approach to working with developers. New York Times technology correspondent Conor Dougherty described the July 2017 YIMBY conference, a 200-person gathering in Oakland, Calif., as “like Woodstock, but for housing activists.”

But Trauss and the YIMBYs are a deeply polarizing force in the Bay. Rendered invisible by this YIMBY-NIMBY divide are the established housing advocacy groups that have been fighting the displacement of working-class communities of color for decades, like the anti-827 crowd at the April 3 rally. The Los Angeles chapter of DSA even coined the term PHIMBY—Public Housing In My Backyard—to represent this sidelined perspective. In San Francisco, these housing advocates are wary of the YIMBYs’ free-market bent, particularly when the movement is made up of so many young, white tech workers.

(Continue Reading)

#politics #the left #affordable housing #gentrification #in these times

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aion-rsa · 3 years ago

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Clickbait’s Twist Ending Makes No Sense

https://ift.tt/2WsT59s

Warning: contains spoilers for the Clickbait finale.

Criticising Netflix’s Clickbait for implausibility feels a bit like criticising a branch of McDonalds for not having a Michelin star – it’s missing the point. Of course Clickbait is implausible, it’s a McSpicy with fries, not Beluga caviar. It’s trashy and twisty and formulated to keep us watching until it serves up something shaped like an ending, and then to release us back into our lives with the only lasting impression being, ‘Oh yeah, I watched that. Had the guy from Entourage.’

Clickbait though, is built on such an implausible premise that it verges on insult – to viewers, to the trashy thriller genre, and to anybody who knows what it means to sync a mobile phone. It’s a cyber-mystery with a vaguely judgmental stance on the internet (bad because: snuff videos and revenge porn and catfishing and data harvesting and empty hook-up apps and in this age of mass connection, when did we stop actually connecting?) and a cyber blind spot the size of California, where it’s set – really Australia in disguise.

In episode one, an online video is posted of father-of-two physicotherapist Nick Brewer (the guy from Entourage aka Adrian Grenier) holding signs saying “I abuse women”, and “At five million views I die”. Nick’s loved ones then immediately watch the video so many times that it easily clears the five million mark, and (spoiler) not long afterwards, his corpse is discovered with his head bashed in.

Nick had been kidnapped and put on video by the brother of Sarah, a woman who killed herself six months earlier after being ignored by her online boyfriend. The online boyfriend had irritably told Sarah to follow through on her threat to take her own life, so the brother found him responsible for her death. The brother also thought that Nick was Sarah’s online boyfriend, but he was wrong. Nick didn’t know anything about this woman. She had been catfished by someone who’d set up a fake dating profile using Nick’s photographs. That person was his office receptionist Dawn Gleed (Becca Lish).

Netflix’s Clickbait Ending: Was Nick Guilty?

By Louisa Mellor

Two years before he was murdered, Nick started a new job. Receptionist Dawn Gleed (old and childless, therefore lonely and unfulfilled in a beautiful-people-show like this one) set up his work login, using a password of his choice, and synced his mobile phone to his work computer. While his phone was syncing, a home screen notification came up from dating site D8R. It was a flirtatious message from a woman named Mandy, chasing Nick up after he’d complimented some bikini photos she’d sent him. This was all Nick, remember. Though married, he’d set up a fake profile under the name ‘Nick Chabot’, pretending that he was an architect in San Jose instead of an Oakland physiotherapist, and looked at Mandy’s bikini pics.

Dawn initially looked shocked at seeing the D8R message, but after a bottle of wine at home that night, she used Nick’s password to log in to his D8R account and start messaging Mandy, posing as Nick. Dawn got a taste for it, and this carried on for two years, with multiple women over multiple online dating apps. She would set up new fake profiles using Nick’s photos, message and phone the women using voice-altering software, and then delete the profile and move on to the next app. It was a loneliness-based hobby of hers.

New on Netflix: August 2021 Releases

By Alec Bojalad

Dirty John Season 2: Betty Broderick – What Happened Next?

By Rosie Fletcher

But one that shouldn’t, by rights, have lasted longer than a single night. The day Dawn first drunkenly logged into Nick’s D8R account and started sending and receiving messages, Nick’s mobile phone was synced to his D8R account (which is how Dawn found out about it in the first place). Therefore, every message Dawn sent posing as him on that site that night would also have shown up as an alert on Nick’s phone. Mandy Harrison later confirmed that she and ‘Nick’ exchanged “tons of messages” but never met in person before she ended things, having sensed that something was off.

Even disregarding the home-screen notifications from his supposedly secret dating app (not the smartest adulterer, Nick), the next time Nick logged in to D8R himself, he would have seen the “tons of messages” exchanged with Mandy Harrison. Why did it take him until he was kidnapped two years later to find out that Dawn was using him for her catfish identity? Dawn was using his log-in and password, not one she’d created. Yes, she could have changed the settings and locked him out of the account, and yes, Nick could have set up that fake profile, sent that flirtatious message and then never logged in again, but none of it feels solid as an explanation.

There are other questions, most of which can probably be answered with ‘thriller characters be crazy’. Why the seemingly arbitrary five million view rule for the video? Why did Dawn’s husband Joe nonsensically murder Nick when identity theft was the only charge Dawn was facing at the time? Why did Dawn and Joe then think that kidnapping and – who knows – murdering Nick’s son Kai, who’d followed the trail to their house, was the best way to avoid prison? Why wouldn’t Nick tell his beloved wife Sophie the truth about his dad’s suicide? Why did Sarah Burton use the pseudonym Maggie Oxley in her online dating profile? Why did none of Dawn’s victims – like Emma, who was planning to marry ‘Nick’ and happily used Facetime when his son called her – accept daily phone calls from her online boyfriend but never a video chat?

For that matter, why did Emma still insist that Nick was the kindest, nicest man in the world after she learned he’d been using a fake name and wasn’t called Danny Walters, as he’d told her? Why were Emma and Sarah delighted and not creeped out to receive pictures ‘Nick’ had Photoshopped of themselves with him at the beach? Why did Dawn go to the trouble of inventing fake names for her ‘Nick’ personas, and then tell her victims specific details about his life, including the correct names and ages of his kids and the fact that he attends a specific college team’s women’s volleyball matches? Why, when Sarah’s brother was reading aloud details about Nick’s marriage and volleyball team from her journal was the page she’d written actually about a bird eaten by her cat? Why, why, why?

Why? Some of the above is poetic licence – characters doing stupid, unrecognisable things because it serves the plot. Some of it is more slapdash – perhaps as a result of the added strains of producing television drama during a pandemic. Some of it is less excusable – breaking trust with the viewer and undermining the cast’s good work because it’s more important to keep us guessing and pressing ‘Next Episode’ than it is to provide a payoff that really works. It’s a junk-food thriller after all, look at the title. You can hardly accuse it of false advertising.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Clickbait is available to stream now on Netflix.

The post Clickbait’s Twist Ending Makes No Sense appeared first on Den of Geek.

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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America's Amtrak moment could finally be here (CNN) — Created in 1971 from the creaking remains of the classic US railroads that helped build modern America, Amtrak has often lived a precarious existence. Subject to the whims of politicians in Washington D.C. and constantly under pressure from the well-funded and hugely influential oil, automotive and airline industry lobbies, the national passenger rail operator has been threatened with oblivion on several occasions. But as it celebrates a 50th anniversary that few would have been brave enough to predict, there are signs that Amtrak’s moment may finally have arrived. The United States remains firmly wedded to the automobile and the sheer size of the nation means that air travel is often the only option for long-distance journeys. Yet dotted across the country are numerous routes where population density and distances make rail a viable option — and a social necessity. That’s not news — those routes have existed since the earliest days of the railroads. What is novel is the renewed enthusiasm of Americans for commuting or taking long-distance leisure trips by train. What is most significant right now is the presence of a passionate Amtrak advocate in the White House. President Joe Biden, a long-time rail commuter rejoicing in the nickname “Amtrak Joe,” is calling on Congress to invest $80 billion in the rail network. This massive chunk of change is needed to address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernize the flagship Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors, create new intercity connections; and enhance grant and loan programs that support passenger and freight rail safety, efficiency and electrification. Battered remnants Amtrak could be on the brink of transformation as it celebrates 50 years. Courtesy Amtrak Amtrak has already secured $1.7 billion in federal funding under the “American Rescue Plan” to stimulate its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, including reinstating suspended services and returning around 1,200 staff from furlough over the next two years. But finding the rest of the money Biden wants to transform passenger rail will require a huge political effort in Washington and across the nation, and a level of cross-party support for railroads not seen for many decades. Speaking at Philadelphia’s 30th Street station at an event to celebrate Amtrak’s anniversary on April 30, Biden spoke of being a proud member of the the rail network’s “family.” “Amtrak doesn’t just carry us from one place to another, it opens up enormous opportunities and it will make it possible to build the economy that we need,” he said. “The expansion of rail provides the well-paid jobs that we need in America. We can’t just build back, we have to build back better; Amtrak and intercity rail will play a central part in that.” There was no celebration when Amtrak’s first train rolled out of New York City on May 1, 1971, heading for Philadelphia. Passenger rail in the United States was in its death throes. Once proud railroads such as the New York Central and Pennsylvania RR went bankrupt after years of huge losses, their trains dated, dirty and unable to compete with the speed, comfort and modernity of airliners, intercity buses and contemporary cars. City center stations, not always in the best part of town, were dirty, dingy and dangerous with years of neglect and rising crime providing a further deterrent to passengers. Amtrak’s challenge was to knit together a disjointed collection of battered remnants, focusing its attention on saving the most viable routes. With a country as large as the United States, a coherent national passenger rail network of the type found in Europe and Japan was never a practical prospect. Instead, busy corridors such as Boston-New York-Washington D.C. would sit alongside a network of low-frequency (daily or less) long-distance services aimed at leisure travelers. In some cases, these trains were also necessary to maintain communications with communities that had grown up alongside the railroad — although countless towns were still abandoned as passenger rail services contracted in the 1950s and 1960s. New trains, faster speeds One of the new generation of Acela trains to be deployed on Amtrak’s lines. Courtesy Amtrak Today, Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations in 46 US states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces on a network of more than 21,400 miles. In 2019, despite repeated threats to its existence and the prospect of swingeing budget cuts in every year of the Trump administration, the company posted its best-ever results. Between 2015 and 2019 annual operating losses fell from $306.5 million to just $29.8 million as new records were set for ridership and revenue. Operational breakeven was forecast for 2020, until the pandemic caused ridership to drop by almost 50%. A rendering of an Amtrak ALC-42 designed by Siemens. Courtesy Amtrak Despite that sudden and traumatic intervention, the overall trend of the last decade is growth, especially on the profitable Northeast Corridor, or NEC, linking Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C. In his April 30 speech, Biden said: “A single day without the Northeast Corridor would cost the US economy $100 million and we’d have to add an extra seven lanes to the interstate to accommodate all the extra cars if it wasn’t there. Compared to the alternatives this railroad is the bargain of bargains.” Since the turn of the century, Amtrak has seen ridership increase in the corridor as a result of its 150 miles-per-hour Acela trains — introduced in 2000 — as well as road congestion and steadily rising gasoline prices. In 2022, the next generation of Acelas will enter service on the NEC. Built in the United States by global rail engineering giant Alstom, the 28 Avelia Liberty trains are derived from the latest iteration of France’s high-speed TGV trains. Fitted with tilting bodies to allow faster travel through curves and capable of 160 miles-per-hour in everyday service, the new trains offer the possibility of further acceleration to 186 miles-per-hour once the infrastructure allows it. Compared to the trains they will replace, the new $2.4 billion Acela fleet is bigger, with eight additional trains (28, rather than 20) allowing a more frequent service with more seats per train. ‘Enjoyable and efficient’ With airlines slashing short-haul routes in America, some see trains as the answer. Joe Raedle/Getty Images Prototype trains started testing at the Federal Railroad Administration’s test center in Pueblo, Colorado and on the NEC in 2020. By the end of that year, the trains had completed 20,000 miles of tests, reaching a maximum speed of 166.8 miles-per-hour at Pueblo. On April 21, another huge investment in new hardware was unveiled when a contract for 83 hybrid electro-diesel train sets was awarded to Siemens. Intended to replace almost 500 of the classic stainless steel Amfleet I cars dating from the mid-1970s, the new Intercity Trainsets will feature locomotives capable of working on diesel or electric power and comfortable new Venture passenger cars. The trains are expected to be similar to those now being delivered by Siemens for the Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha service. They will be deployed on medium-distance NEC services, the Palmetto between New York City and Savannah, Georgia and on the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver ‘Cascades’ route. “This new state-of-the-art equipment will not only provide Amtrak customers with an enjoyable and efficient travel experience, it will also enable us to improve safety, increase passenger capacity and reduce carbon emissions,” commented Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn. More Venture cars are also on order to replace life-expired vehicles on state-supported services in the Midwest and California, including 97 cars for routes radiating from Chicago to cities in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin and 49 for the Bakersfield-Oakland/Sacramento San Joaquins. ‘The real America’ “If you really want to see the real America, Amtrak is better.” Joe Raedle/Getty Images Long-distance routes such as the Seattle-Los Angeles Coast Starlight and Chicago-San Francisco Southwest Chief will also gain new equipment for the first time in over two decades this year when 4,200 horsepower Charger locomotives and 130 new Viewliner II sleeping, dining and baggage cars start to be rolled out. While the long-distance routes are unlikely to play a significant role in US transportation needs, they are a valuable asset for tourism and the often-isolated communities they serve. Sean Jeans-Gail, vice-president of government affairs and policy at the US Rail Passengers Association, highlights the network’s potential to give travelers a real connection to the nation it criss-crosses. “We have an extraordinary, beautiful country but the ‘Great American Road Trip’ is on life support because when you do it you hit traffic and the same homogenized strip malls over and over again across the highway network,” he tells CNN. “If you really want to see the real America, Amtrak is better.” Intercity and interurban routes away from the NEC offer Amtrak the greatest opportunity for growth in the coming years. Airlines have slashed back regional flights of around 300-400 miles in recent years, leaving many cities such as Memphis and Cincinnati with poor communications. These routes offer huge potential for rail, which is competitive with air for journeys of three to four hours between city centers, while at the same time transforming connectivity for towns in between. Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the US Rail Passengers Association says these factors present a strong case for reversing the dismantling of rail services and enhancing links between rural and urban centers. He says transportation planners and the Department of Transport are coming around to this way of thinking, looking at shifting populations and how they create new travel patterns, particularly in the Midwest and Southeast. But, he says, although America could be on the brink of a rail revolution, it is unlikely to be traveling at any great velocity. “A lot of us are guilty of getting zeroed in on the shiny object,” he tells CNN. “Sure TGV [high-speed rail] would be cool but it’s not necessary to see dramatic improvements in rail travel. “With targeted investment in track, straightening curves or new signaling you could get average speeds of up to 79 miles-per-hour. There are places now where the average is 25!” In his April 30 speech, Biden said his spending plans were crucial to leveling up America on the global stage. “I propose spending $10 billion a year on passenger and freight rail, repairing this vital infrastructure and expanding passenger rail services,” he said. “It’s going to provide jobs and accommodate jobs — towns that have been left behind will be back in the game if we can provide them with fast, clean, safe infrastructure. “We’re way behind the rest of the world on this now, and we have to move if we’re going to compete with the likes of China. There’s so much we can do, and it can have an incredibly positive impact on jobs and the environment, but we have to invest now.” ‘Worthwhile ambition’ Investment could see Amtraks trains and infrastructure upgraded to allow ehnahced speeds. oe Raedle/Getty Images Republicans have proposed an alternative infrastructure plan costed at $538 billion, just $20 billion of which would be dedicated to rail improvements. Amtrak estimates that the Northeast Corridor alone requires $31 billion to overcome a repairs backlog. Much-needed investment in equipment is also being accompanied by federal spending on infrastructure as part of President Biden’s $621 billion American Jobs Plan but there’s also increasing support at state level. In late March, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam outlined a 10-year program to expand intercity and regional rail services across the state. As well as investing in infrastructure improvements, Virginia also plans to double its financial support for Amtrak’s Washington-Richmond intercity route, allowing a near-hourly service to operate and commuter rail operations could increase by up to 60%. More than 200 miles of little-used, abandoned or freight-only lines could also be acquired at a cost of $3.7 billion to allow the reinstatement and expansion of intercity and regional rail services across the state. “I think there’s support coalescing both on left and right for investment in rail and I’m confident that the Biden team sees it as a worthwhile ambition for the current administration,” Mathews adds. “They’ve talked about more electrification for rail, a nod to the ‘Green New Deal’ but also an important preparatory step for high-speed rail. One thing we’re terrible at compared with Europe is the lack of electrified railroads. “There are limitations that come with that, but I can see much more robust electrification in California which is preparing for high-speed rail. “Californian electrification would have benefits for the environment, speed and maintenance and I can see the Biden administration going very solidly for it.” Fifty years on from US rail’s darkest days, the stars seem to be aligning for Amtrak at last. And while it will always be at the mercy of shifting political priorities and competing interests, there is a growing recognition that the world’s richest nation can no longer get by with a public transportation system that many regard as unfit for purpose. Source link Orbem News #America'sAmtrakmomentcouldfinallybehere-CNN #Americas #Amtrak #FINALLY #Moment #Travel

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letsjonebenblog · 4 years ago

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dipulb3 · 4 years ago

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America's Amtrak moment could finally be here

New Post has been published on https://appradab.com/americas-amtrak-moment-could-finally-be-here/

America's Amtrak moment could finally be here

(Appradab) — Created in 1971 from the creaking remains of the classic US railroads that helped build modern America, Amtrak has often lived a precarious existence.

Subject to the whims of politicians in Washington D.C. and constantly under pressure from the well-funded and hugely influential oil, automotive and airline industry lobbies, the national passenger rail operator has been threatened with oblivion on several occasions.

But as it celebrates a 50th anniversary that few would have been brave enough to predict, there are signs that Amtrak’s moment may finally have arrived.

The United States remains firmly wedded to the automobile and the sheer size of the nation means that air travel is often the only option for long-distance journeys.

Yet dotted across the country are numerous routes where population density and distances make rail a viable option — and a social necessity.

That’s not news — those routes have existed since the earliest days of the railroads. What is novel is the renewed enthusiasm of Americans for commuting or taking long-distance leisure trips by train.

What is most significant right now is the presence of a passionate Amtrak advocate in the White House.

President Joe Biden, a long-time rail commuter rejoicing in the nickname “Amtrak Joe,” is calling on Congress to invest $80 billion in the rail network.

This massive chunk of change is needed to address Amtrak’s repair backlog; modernize the flagship Northeast Corridor; improve existing corridors, create new intercity connections; and enhance grant and loan programs that support passenger and freight rail safety, efficiency and electrification.

Battered remnants

Amtrak could be on the brink of transformation as it celebrates 50 years.

Courtesy Amtrak

Amtrak has already secured $1.7 billion in federal funding under the “American Rescue Plan” to stimulate its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, including reinstating suspended services and returning around 1,200 staff from furlough over the next two years.

But finding the rest of the money Biden wants to transform passenger rail will require a huge political effort in Washington and across the nation, and a level of cross-party support for railroads not seen for many decades.

Speaking at Philadelphia’s 30th Street station at an event to celebrate Amtrak’s anniversary on April 30, Biden spoke of being a proud member of the the rail network’s “family.”

“Amtrak doesn’t just carry us from one place to another, it opens up enormous opportunities and it will make it possible to build the economy that we need,” he said. “The expansion of rail provides the well-paid jobs that we need in America. We can’t just build back, we have to build back better; Amtrak and intercity rail will play a central part in that.”

There was no celebration when Amtrak’s first train rolled out of New York City on May 1, 1971, heading for Philadelphia.

Passenger rail in the United States was in its death throes. Once proud railroads such as the New York Central and Pennsylvania RR went bankrupt after years of huge losses, their trains dated, dirty and unable to compete with the speed, comfort and modernity of airliners, intercity buses and contemporary cars.

City center stations, not always in the best part of town, were dirty, dingy and dangerous with years of neglect and rising crime providing a further deterrent to passengers.

Amtrak’s challenge was to knit together a disjointed collection of battered remnants, focusing its attention on saving the most viable routes.

With a country as large as the United States, a coherent national passenger rail network of the type found in Europe and Japan was never a practical prospect.

Instead, busy corridors such as Boston-New York-Washington D.C. would sit alongside a network of low-frequency (daily or less) long-distance services aimed at leisure travelers.

In some cases, these trains were also necessary to maintain communications with communities that had grown up alongside the railroad — although countless towns were still abandoned as passenger rail services contracted in the 1950s and 1960s.

New trains, faster speeds

One of the new generation of Acela trains to be deployed on Amtrak’s lines.

Courtesy Amtrak

Today, Amtrak serves more than 500 destinations in 46 US states, the District of Columbia and three Canadian provinces on a network of more than 21,400 miles.

In 2019, despite repeated threats to its existence and the prospect of swingeing budget cuts in every year of the Trump administration, the company posted its best-ever results.

Between 2015 and 2019 annual operating losses fell from $306.5 million to just $29.8 million as new records were set for ridership and revenue.

Operational breakeven was forecast for 2020, until the pandemic caused ridership to drop by almost 50%.

A rendering of an Amtrak ALC-42 designed by Siemens.

Courtesy Amtrak

Despite that sudden and traumatic intervention, the overall trend of the last decade is growth, especially on the profitable Northeast Corridor, or NEC, linking Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington D.C.

In his April 30 speech, Biden said: “A single day without the Northeast Corridor would cost the US economy $100 million and we’d have to add an extra seven lanes to the interstate to accommodate all the extra cars if it wasn’t there. Compared to the alternatives this railroad is the bargain of bargains.”

Since the turn of the century, Amtrak has seen ridership increase in the corridor as a result of its 150 miles-per-hour Acela trains — introduced in 2000 — as well as road congestion and steadily rising gasoline prices.

In 2022, the next generation of Acelas will enter service on the NEC. Built in the United States by global rail engineering giant Alstom, the 28 Avelia Liberty trains are derived from the latest iteration of France’s high-speed TGV trains.

Fitted with tilting bodies to allow faster travel through curves and capable of 160 miles-per-hour in everyday service, the new trains offer the possibility of further acceleration to 186 miles-per-hour once the infrastructure allows it.

Compared to the trains they will replace, the new $2.4 billion Acela fleet is bigger, with eight additional trains (28, rather than 20) allowing a more frequent service with more seats per train.

‘Enjoyable and efficient’

With airlines slashing short-haul routes in America, some see trains as the answer.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Prototype trains started testing at the Federal Railroad Administration’s test center in Pueblo, Colorado and on the NEC in 2020. By the end of that year, the trains had completed 20,000 miles of tests, reaching a maximum speed of 166.8 miles-per-hour at Pueblo.

On April 21, another huge investment in new hardware was unveiled when a contract for 83 hybrid electro-diesel train sets was awarded to Siemens.

Intended to replace almost 500 of the classic stainless steel Amfleet I cars dating from the mid-1970s, the new Intercity Trainsets will feature locomotives capable of working on diesel or electric power and comfortable new Venture passenger cars.

The trains are expected to be similar to those now being delivered by Siemens for the Chicago-Milwaukee Hiawatha service. They will be deployed on medium-distance NEC services, the Palmetto between New York City and Savannah, Georgia and on the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver ‘Cascades’ route.

“This new state-of-the-art equipment will not only provide Amtrak customers with an enjoyable and efficient travel experience, it will also enable us to improve safety, increase passenger capacity and reduce carbon emissions,” commented Amtrak CEO Bill Flynn.

More Venture cars are also on order to replace life-expired vehicles on state-supported services in the Midwest and California, including 97 cars for routes radiating from Chicago to cities in Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Wisconsin and 49 for the Bakersfield-Oakland/Sacramento San Joaquins.

‘The real America’

“If you really want to see the real America, Amtrak is better.”

Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Long-distance routes such as the Seattle-Los Angeles Coast Starlight and Chicago-San Francisco Southwest Chief will also gain new equipment for the first time in over two decades this year when 4,200 horsepower Charger locomotives and 130 new Viewliner II sleeping, dining and baggage cars start to be rolled out.

While the long-distance routes are unlikely to play a significant role in US transportation needs, they are a valuable asset for tourism and the often-isolated communities they serve.

Sean Jeans-Gail, vice-president of government affairs and policy at the US Rail Passengers Association, highlights the network’s potential to give travelers a real connection to the nation it criss-crosses.

“We have an extraordinary, beautiful country but the ‘Great American Road Trip’ is on life support because when you do it you hit traffic and the same homogenized strip malls over and over again across the highway network,” he tells Appradab.

“If you really want to see the real America, Amtrak is better.”

Intercity and interurban routes away from the NEC offer Amtrak the greatest opportunity for growth in the coming years.

Airlines have slashed back regional flights of around 300-400 miles in recent years, leaving many cities such as Memphis and Cincinnati with poor communications.

These routes offer huge potential for rail, which is competitive with air for journeys of three to four hours between city centers, while at the same time transforming connectivity for towns in between.

Jim Mathews, president and CEO of the US Rail Passengers Association says these factors present a strong case for reversing the dismantling of rail services and enhancing links between rural and urban centers.

He says transportation planners and the Department of Transport are coming around to this way of thinking, looking at shifting populations and how they create new travel patterns, particularly in the Midwest and Southeast.

But, he says, although America could be on the brink of a rail revolution, it is unlikely to be traveling at any great velocity.

“A lot of us are guilty of getting zeroed in on the shiny object,” he tells Appradab. “Sure TGV [high-speed rail] would be cool but it’s not necessary to see dramatic improvements in rail travel.

“With targeted investment in track, straightening curves or new signaling you could get average speeds of up to 79 miles-per-hour. There are places now where the average is 25!”

In his April 30 speech, Biden said his spending plans were crucial to leveling up America on the global stage.

“I propose spending $10 billion a year on passenger and freight rail, repairing this vital infrastructure and expanding passenger rail services,” he said. “It’s going to provide jobs and accommodate jobs — towns that have been left behind will be back in the game if we can provide them with fast, clean, safe infrastructure.

“We’re way behind the rest of the world on this now, and we have to move if we’re going to compete with the likes of China. There’s so much we can do, and it can have an incredibly positive impact on jobs and the environment, but we have to invest now.”

‘Worthwhile ambition’

Investment could see Amtraks trains and infrastructure upgraded to allow ehnahced speeds.

oe Raedle/Getty Images

Republicans have proposed an alternative infrastructure plan costed at $538 billion, just $20 billion of which would be dedicated to rail improvements. Amtrak estimates that the Northeast Corridor alone requires $31 billion to overcome a repairs backlog.

Much-needed investment in equipment is also being accompanied by federal spending on infrastructure as part of President Biden’s $621 billion American Jobs Plan but there’s also increasing support at state level.

In late March, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg and Virginia Governor Ralph Northam outlined a 10-year program to expand intercity and regional rail services across the state.

As well as investing in infrastructure improvements, Virginia also plans to double its financial support for Amtrak’s Washington-Richmond intercity route, allowing a near-hourly service to operate and commuter rail operations could increase by up to 60%.

More than 200 miles of little-used, abandoned or freight-only lines could also be acquired at a cost of $3.7 billion to allow the reinstatement and expansion of intercity and regional rail services across the state.

“I think there’s support coalescing both on left and right for investment in rail and I’m confident that the Biden team sees it as a worthwhile ambition for the current administration,” Mathews adds.

“They’ve talked about more electrification for rail, a nod to the ‘Green New Deal’ but also an important preparatory step for high-speed rail. One thing we’re terrible at compared with Europe is the lack of electrified railroads.

“There are limitations that come with that, but I can see much more robust electrification in California which is preparing for high-speed rail.

“Californian electrification would have benefits for the environment, speed and maintenance and I can see the Biden administration going very solidly for it.”

Fifty years on from US rail’s darkest days, the stars seem to be aligning for Amtrak at last.

And while it will always be at the mercy of shifting political priorities and competing interests, there is a growing recognition that the world’s richest nation can no longer get by with a public transportation system that many regard as unfit for purpose.

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gslocks123 · 5 years ago

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What Makes a Great Locksmith?

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android-for-life · 4 years ago

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"A year of work on the Bay Area's housing and homeless crises"

Today, we’re marking the one-year anniversary of our Bay Area housing commitment. Since last year, we’ve met with hundreds of advocates, developers and community leaders to understand how to quickly create affordable housing and support solutions to homelessness. In the Bay area, there’s a severe housing shortage of nearly 500,000 affordable units and the homelessness crisis affects around 35,000 people. So we focused our efforts on two areas: grants to assist people experiencing homelessness and investments to produce more affordable housing.

With last year’s commitments and the announcements below, we’ve allocated a total of $115 million from our $250 million investment fund, which we expect will help create around 24,000 new affordable housing units—both conventional and modular—by 2029. In addition, Google.org has granted $7.75 million to nonprofits on the front lines of homelessness.

Google.org’s $50 million pledge

Google.org’s grants to Bay Area nonprofits are projected to support more than 33,000 people with services like food distribution, job training, case management, and house 9,000 of those individuals over the span of four years. Google.org has supported solutions to homelessnessfor years and learned that the “Housing First” approach is the best way to help the homeless community. They will continue to support this approach with their new grants.

Our $250 million investment fund

This past year we provided early and reliable capital to affordable housing projects, like The Kelsey Ayer Station, from our $250 million investment fund. Based in San José, The Kelsey Ayer Station will offer 115 homes for people with a range of incomes and 25 percent of the community is specifically reserved for people with disabilities.

A rendering of The Kelsey Ayer Station in San José, California. Image credit: The Kelsey.

We also committed $50 million to Housing Trust Silicon Valley’s TECH Fund to help build more affordable units quickly. So far, Housing Trust has invested these funds in six projects throughout the Bay Area with more to come. We’re encouraged that some housing developments that we invested in are already expected to break ground in 2021.

As we focus on helping the Bay Area build more homes, we’re making two more commitments from our $250 million investment fund.

Reinvesting in Housing Trust

We’ve committed another $50 million to Housing Trust to establish the Launch Initiative. Funded 90 percent by Google, the initiative will give us—along with Housing Trust—opportunities to invest in a broader range of affordable housing projects. We’ve already seen progress with investments in two developments that are expected to create 150 homes: Alum Rock by Charities Housing in San Jose and Newark Timber by Eden Housing in Alameda County. In total, we’re estimating that this initiative will create 4,000 affordable units.

Supporting modular technology

Modular housing is another opportunity to greatly increase the Bay Area’s housing supply. It’s faster and less expensive than conventional construction, two characteristics that are often unheard of in California’s housing industry. So, we’re looking into modular housing options for our investments.

Inside Factory_OS’ facility where workers are manufacturing a modular home. Image credit: Nancy Holliday.

As one example, we’ve been working with modular housing companies like Factory_OS. With our support, Factory_OS expects to double its production capacity by building a second factory, with a goal of creating tens of thousands affordable housing units over the next decade, including around 700 multi-family modular homes in Oakland and San Francisco by early 2021.

Looking ahead

Over the last year, we’ve made progress proposing plans where residential units, offices, retail, and parks will coexist on our land. We’re working closely with elected officials and residents on proposals in Mountain View and have submitted our San José Downtown West mixed-use plan.

We’ll continue working with our communities, local leaders, and elected officials like Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA 18th District) on solutions for the Bay Area. As she’s said, “We need an ‘all-of-the-above’ approach to the homelessness and housing crises, particularly as COVID-19 continues to create long-term economic uncertainty and expose the dramatic inequities in our society. I look forward to continuing to work with Google to invest in our local communities and build a better future for our region.”

Header image credit: Affirmed Housing

Source : The Official Google Blog via Source information

#jeprog

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sanfranciskurt · 7 years ago

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the last time I freaked out; I just kept looking down

For the first time in three years, Kurt drove up to his old high school. It was kind of eerie seeing Lakewood High all over again after years of avoiding it. It looked exactly the same, but also so foreign after years away. It was even eerier once he parked in the mostly empty lot and walked into the silent halls.

It was kind of odd that Kurt had managed to avoid Lakewood so much in the first place. While Oakland was relatively large, Kurt still lived near the school, seeing as he hadn’t moved out of his parents’ place. At times he felt like a loser, still living at home at 21, but it wasn’t like he wasn’t doing anything with his life. He attended school up in San Francisco where he studied fashion. He did a damn good job at it, too, thank you very much. See, while Kurt considered some big name schools in New York and in southern California and Chicago and elsewhere, he had gotten a great scholarship at Academy of Art in San Francisco to major in fashion design. And while he wanted to actually live in San Francisco, he knew that was basically a financial impossibility. Plus it was just impractical to pay thousands in rent while he could save up money by living at home.

After walking over the still familiar route to the gyms, Kurt found the group of people he was looking for. While Kurt had a job at school, it was basically rendered null over the summer. He needed some kind of work, and while he loved his dad and his garage, he didn’t want to work with him for a full summer. He needed a sense of independence, especially since he didn’t have school to keep him out of the house for the summer. After some searching for jobs in Oakland and around the bay, he finally got a job at a camp.

Camp Cougar, named after the high school’s mascot, had three different sessions of the summer period, and they needed an arts and crafts counselor. The pay wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d make serving coffee or something, so Kurt could deal with some little kiddos if need be. Some high schoolers and parents volunteered to help usher the kids around in their teams and get them to their various activities, so at least he wouldn’t be too hands-on with them. It was really just your typical day camp, with arts and crafts and games and all sorts of things to keep kids entertained.

Today was the Sunday before the camp started. They were doing some pre-camp meeting with the teachers and some of the volunteers to get them ready for the first session. When Kurt checked in with the head of the program, she explained that they still had a few minutes before they were starting and Kurt could help himself to some snacks and drinks at the table. Kurt thanked her and figured he might as well grab one of the water bottles.

Last time he had been in that gym, Kurt hadn’t been nearly as calm. Gym had been his least favorite class. While he was openly gay, it wasn’t a huge deal, since, duh, it was Oakland. It still didn’t make him wildly popular or anything, and a few guys were a bit homophobic, especially when changing, but that wasn’t the worst part about gym. The worst part was just his own awkwardness. As a freshman, he was a bit chubby and awkward. Then, during the middle of his junior sophomore year, he had a massive growth spurt. Like, so massive and fast that he still had some stretch marks on his sides. Over the next few years he grew more steadily, but he still had trouble figuring out how to work his dumb body that was suddenly too big for him. He was definitely a bit gangly, and while he could dance well enough, running in gym or playing football or whatever they had to do was really tough. Once he graduated he somehow managed to put on some muscle and find workouts that worked well for him, enough that he was proud of his body, but high school gym? That was not his favorite thing.

Well, except for the person he noticed as he took a sip of water, nearly choking as he realized who it was.

Coach Puck took over gym the same year Kurt started at Lakewood. He was young, just out of college, and was really, really good looking. Despite hating gym, Kurt had the biggest crush on him. As did basically every other male attracted person in the school, honestly. He was hot. And while gym was a living hell, at least he was never cruel to Kurt or the other awkward kids.

And apparently Kurt was working with him now.

Kurt coughed a little and wiped his mouth, turning away just in case his former teacher, or any of the other workers for that matter, saw that. He was already the youngest person there, so nearly choking on water would’ve been really embarrassing. Kurt took a moment to calm down and looked back around him. He really didn’t know anyone else, and, well, if they were going to be working together, there was no harm in saying hi, right? At least he wasn’t wearing the gym uniform this time around. Kurt, being a fashion major after all, had opted for a pair of his tight black pants and a white and red short-sleeved shirt with a black vest on top. He knew once it got warmer he’d have to opt to wear shorts, but this worked for now.

Kurt walked over to him and did his best to hide his nerves. “Hi,” Kurt said, his voice still about as high as it had been his whole life. “I don’t know if you remember me, I went to school here -- Kurt Hummel? Does that ring a bell?” Kurt smiled and offered his hand, “I guess we’ll be working together, Mr. Puckerman.” He knew everyone called him “Coach Puck”, but it seemed so informal to him at the time, so he always defaulted to “Mr. Puckerman”. “Oh, yeah, I’m teaching arts and crafts this year.”

#para #para: 001

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wineanddinosaur · 5 years ago

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Is the 1,000-Bottle Wine List Over?

Ours is an era of culinary athleisure. The hottest restaurants specialize in expensive understatement, serving cult toasts and Michelin-starred pizza, and rendering $200 porterhouses and muscular Napa Cabs not obsolete, exactly, but certainly not cutting edge, either.

The format and formality of wine lists are similarly shifting. Those grand, leather-bound tomes of yesteryear, wherein 10 pages might be devoted to French whites, are increasingly replaced by one-page printouts (or, better yet, a hand-written chalkboard!) comprised of a few reds, whites, a rosé, and maybe a Pét-Nat or grower Champagne.

It’s unclear whether these slimmed-down selections are necessarily an improvement for diners. Is it easier for consumers to approach a 15-bottle list than an encyclopedic tome? Or do restaurants with limited offerings risk alienating all but the savviest of drinkers?

“I’m a fan of the hyper-curated list because it maintains a focus,” Piper Kristensen, beverage director of Brooklyn’s Oxalis restaurant, says. His 50-bottle wine program has “gotten a lot of people to try some wines that are maybe outside of their comfort zone. For the most part, people have been really pleasantly surprised,” he says.

The mix is key. “If you’re going to have a shorter list, you need to have a little bit of everything,” says David Osenbach, wine director of Los Angeles’s Providence restaurant. There should be some bottles that will be familiar to most of your guests, as well as some surprises for curious drinkers.

Margot Mazur, sommelier at Rebel Rebel in Somerville, Mass., believes a well-edited list can demonstrate how much thought the restaurant puts into its wine program. “I look to restaurants like Sarma in Boston, who champion wines from the Mediterranean to match their similarly placed food menu,” she says. “Instead of feeling overwhelmed, the guest is intrigued and feels empowered to make a decision and to ask questions.”

Think about your favorite local Italian restaurant. If it has a short list of primarily Italian wines, you know you can pick one and it will likely complement your meal. On the other hand, if the kitchen serves southern Italian fare, and the wine list contains four California Chardonnays, three Oregon Pinot Noirs, and a smattering of obscure French varietals, many diners won’t know what to order.

Smart wine lists of any length reflect the restaurant’s culinary ideology. At Parallel 37 in San Francisco, for example, the menu features local ingredients and lists the provenance of everything from Dungeness crab to the Port Reyes-born blue cheese accompanying a beef tenderloin. Fittingly, the 20-bottle wine list skews heavily Californian.

“My best sellers are my servers, and no one can memorize a 1,000-wine list,” says Jacqueline Hültner, assistant director of food and beverage at the Ritz-Carlton San Francisco, which contains Parallel 37.

Meanwhile, Oxalis’s chef Nico Russell changes his hyper-seasonal New American menu almost daily, so Kristensen has a similarly ephemeral approach to his list, often buying one case of wine at a time. “The wines we get are released very seasonally. They’re here just for a minute and then they’re gone. That works with the way Nico designed his menu,” Kristensen says.

Granted, that means if you loved the Spatburgunder you had with your duck rillettes at Oxalis last month, neither might be available the next time you visit. But it’s in keeping with the market-driven spirit of the restaurant.

Seth Rogin, the CEO of a media and advertising company in NYC, estimates he dines out two of every three nights a week. He believes the size of a restaurant’s wine list is considerably less important than the skill of its staff.

“I’ve seen phenomenal short lists as much as I’ve seen the big binder. It really matters more what level of insight and care comes to the list,” Rogin says. He recalls an evening at the Beatrice Inn in Manhattan, when an especially skilled sommelier made suggestions for both his meal and after-dinner entertainment based on the wine he had purchased from a 220-bottle list. “It was spot-on!” Rogin says. “The wine list can really make you connect with the restaurant.”

That’s good news for those operating smaller cellars. After all, from a practical standpoint, wine lists can only be as expansive as storage allows. “I always know my wine-purchasing budget is up when I’ve run out of space in the wine room. When I have no more room to put things, I’m like, ‘Ah, I probably shouldn’t buy anything.’ The accountants have different metrics for measuring,” Osenbach says.

If you’re in a tiny boite serving seasonal small plates in, say, Brooklyn or Oakland, it makes sense if the wine list is slim and focused on young wines. Many modern city restaurants don’t have budgets or storage capacity for expansive, Bern’s Steak House-style, old-school cellars.

Those long wine lists can be challenging, too. An expansive collection can intimidate diners even as it awes them with its breadth and expertise.

“Having 1,000 wines on your list is less impressive than it is overwhelming, and, as a consumer, I don’t want to come to a restaurant and have to take 30 minutes poring over the list,” Mazur says. “I want to know that the restaurant tasted through options and curated their list to match their menu and their style. I want to trust the restaurant to help me in my decision-making process.”

Orsenbach agrees. “I can see people being like, ‘I don’t know anything on here, there’s too much going on, I’m overwhelmed, I’ll just get a cocktail,’ and then you’ve defeated the purpose of having this giant and/or esoteric wine list,” he says.

Herein lies the secret to excellent restaurant wine programs. Regardless of quantity, all the wines need to be accessible to all the diners and staff. If no one but the head sommelier and their two best friends can figure out how the list is organized, or what might appeal to someone who typically only drinks New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, it’s missing the mark.

“You have to put your hospitality hat on,” Dan O’Brien, owner and winemaker, Gail Wines, says. Otherwise, the restaurant will alienate guests — and probably not sell very much wine.

“I want to have a wine list where, if I died in the middle of service, people are still able to order wine,” Orsenbach says. “It can have 12 bottles nobody’s heard of, or 150 pages of things people know, but you have to have people in the restaurant who can help you navigate all that if you need it.”

The article Is the 1,000-Bottle Wine List Over? appeared first on VinePair.

source https://vinepair.com/articles/short-wine-list-restaurants/

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