A shopping center in Yonkers, N.Y. (yep, Consumerist’s global headquarters) didn’t think that it was doing anything wrong when it set up its own parking meters along the private streets on its property. Customers fed them. You park next to a meter, you feed it, right? Park Ridge has collected money and even issued its own parking tickets since the spring of 2011. The problem, of course, is that the city of Yonkers is the only entity with the authority to issue parking tickets and run meters. According to city officials, the shopping center’s developer kept collecting meter money and ticketing non-payers even after the City Council asked them to stop. [More]
Mall Puts Up Its Own Parking Meters Of ‘Questionable Legality’, Issues Tickets
By January 18, 2013
Washington, DC Safeway Store Introduces Receipt Checks
By February 15, 2011
Know what American retail needs? More receipt checks. DCist reports that a Washington, D.C. Safeway store has traded uniformed security guards posted at the door for plainclothes Walmart-style greeters who politely block shoppers from exiting until their receipts are checked. There’s an almost literal escape hatch, though: for now, tipsters say that there are no receipt checkers posted at the exit to the parking garage. [More]
Homegrown Currencies Are Popular Right Now, But Do They Work?
By July 20, 2010
Remember the Downtown Dollars that Ardmore, PA sold to its citizens this year? Sara Lepro at American Banker looked at that and other “homegrown currency” experiments happening across the country, which are intended to stimulate the local economy and take advantage of “a growing ‘localism’ movement.” [More]
Cities Are So Broke They're Outsourcing The Police
By July 19, 2010
The new trend in government cost-cutting involves disbanding the police department, says the WSJ. The paper has an article about Maywood, a tiny city southeast of Los Angeles. The city lost its insurance after its carrier decided to cancel its policy “because of the $21 million in legal expenses and judgments against the city stemming from the conduct of its police department.” This means that Maywood can’t employ anyone. [More]
Looking For Jobs, Innovation And Culture? Try These 10 Cities
By June 2, 2010
Kiplinger has put together a list of 10 cities that it says are primed to be great places to build a career and enjoy your life at the same time. Even better: the magazine didn’t put the list in a slideshow format, so you can read the entire thing on one page! Austin and Seattle take top spots, but there are some less predictable choices on there as well; how about Burlington, VT or Topeka, KS? [More]
Sandlin's "The Road to Nowhere" Essay Now Available
By December 15, 2009
The awesome narrative non-fiction writer Lee Sandlin has posted online for the first time ever his 54-page 1984 essay “The Road To Nowhere – On Suburbia, the Interstates, and the National Defense: A Confession.” It’s full of little gems like how interstates plowing through poor neighborhoods were justified in part because their increased light would reduce crime and their concrete barriers would serve as excellent firebreaks in the event of nuclear war.
The Road to Nowhere [Lee Sandlin]
Walmart Prepares For New Push Into Major Urban Areas
By November 4, 2009
If you live in Chicago, New York City, or Philadelphia, expect to start hearing some noise about Walmart in the coming months. The retailer has announced that it’s going to “step up efforts to mobilize local political support” so that it can finally open stores in those cities, reports the Financial Times.
Start A Career And Settle Down In The Top Cities For Young People
By September 30, 2009
An earlier article listed the best cities for retirees and sundry old folks to flock to, but young people want to self-segregate, too. Thankfully, the Wall Street Journal, widely read by American youths, presents The Next Hot Youth-Magnet Cities.
Want To Learn How To Make It Yourself? Visit Homegrown Evolution
By June 26, 2009
HomegrownEvolution.com is sort of a simplified Instructables for people interested in “mead making, beer brewing, bread baking, urban poultry raising, container planting, pirate gardening, foraging, pickling,” and more, according to Cool Tools. We have a feeling “pirate gardening” isn’t as fun as it sounds.
Top 10 Most And Least Affordable Cities
By February 20, 2009
The National Association of Home Builders and Wells Fargo have put together an index of the most and least affordable metro areas. The index was created by calculating what percentage of a city’s residents making the median income can afford a house in that city.
The Best Cities To Live In During A Recession
By October 15, 2008
BusinessWeek asks, assuming that we keep sliding down into an official recession, where are the best places to live? They’ve pulled data from PolicyMap.com and the U.S. Census to make some educated guesses about local economies that will be least damaged by a large-scale downturn. They reason that no matter how the national economy fares, there will always be government jobs and a need for health care; higher education institutes provide a cushion for local economies, too.
America's 15 Hardest Drinking Cities
By August 11, 2008
Ah, Consumer Behavior. Forbes took a look at the CDC’s 2007 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey (BRFSS) and ranked 33 cities based on their resident’s answers to three survey questions:
The 20 Best And Worst Cities For Unemployment Benefits
By July 6, 2008
Losing a job is bad enough, but your unemployment benefits can vary wildly depending on where you live. The L.A. Times compared unemployment benefits to the cost of living and picked the twenty best and worst cities to be unemployed.
By June 9, 2008
Costa Mesa may follow L.A.’s lead and sue Time Warner Cable for shoddy service, too. [Broadcast Newsroom]
Pregnant? Asthmatic? Don't Like Rollercoasters? Stay Away From NYC Elevators And Escalators
By May 19, 2008
Unless you’re willing to risk being stranded with 14 other passengers several stories underground in a cattle car elevator on a hot summer day, or plunging at extreme speeds down an escalator with a broken chain, you might want to steer clear of NYC’s subway system lifts. The New York Times has published the results of an extensive investigation that includes tales of daily breakdowns, comically undertrained mechanics, and about $1 billion spent over the past decade.
America's 10 Most Miserable Cities
By February 12, 2008
Did you know there was an index to measure misery?
Misery is defined as a state of great unhappiness and emotional distress. The economic indicator most often used to measure misery is the Misery Index. The index, created by economist Arthur Okun, adds the unemployment rate to the inflation rate. It has been in the narrow 7-to-9 range for most of the past decade, but was over 20 during the late 1970s.
Answers To NYC Renters' Questions
By January 30, 2008
How do you get your landlord to require the upstairs neighbors to put down carpets? A lawyer who “has practiced in the landlord-tenant arena for more than two decades” has been answering these sorts of questions on the New York Times’ “City Room” blog. The advice he gives, while helpful and specific, is mostly based on what we imagine are NYC-specific problems and cites New York statutes, but it still might be helpful for renters elsewhere with similar problems.
