Sharing may seem harmless—a helpful, good thing for society, even. But for months, “sharing economy” businesses like Airbnb, FlightCar, and Lyft have come under legal fire in cities such as San Francisco, New York, and Austin. This week, ridesharing companies, which match nonprofessional drivers up with paying passengers, received …
Los Angeles
What’s New in Spoiled Children, and Spoiled Pets
Time and again, consumer trends point out that people are increasingly pampering their pets as if they were children. Or is it the other way around? In any event, they’re both pretty spoiled.
Home Prices Continue to Rise — But Will the Market Rebound Continue?
Spring is traditionally a strong season for home sales, and despite continued uncertainty in the economy, this spring was no exception, with housing prices up around the country, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller Index. June …
Should Kids Be Fined If They Skip School?
Big-Box Shrinkage: Retailers Embrace Sales on a Smaller Scale
While the big-box retail model is far from dead, stores such as Walmart, Best Buy, and Cabela’s are realizing that the enormous, one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work for all shoppers—nor all locations. To grow, many …
Got Stuff? Typical American Home Is Cluttered with Possessions — and Stressing Us Out
The idea for a new book by UCLA researchers sounds pretty boring. A team of anthropologists went into 32 typical homes — middle-class, dual-income families, with school-age children — and cataloged what they saw. Sorta like …
Where Gas Prices Have Soared Even Higher Than California
California tends to get a lot of the attention in terms of rising gas prices. The state does have the highest prices in the Lower 48, now averaging $4.35 per gallon, up from $3.83 in mid-February. But over the last five or so …
Home Affordability Near Highest Level in 20 Years
It’s easy to drown in real estate statistics, but looking at “affordability” — the homes that someone on a median income could buy — is a fascinating gauge of housing markets. (Plus, it’s a statistic that can be fine-tuned to …
As Regular Malls Struggle, Outlet Malls Are Booming
Roughly one out of every 11 store sites is empty at traditional malls around the country. That’s the highest mall vacancy rate in over a decade, even though rents at these properties are likely to have decreased or leveled off …
Lesson from ‘Carmageddon’: It’s Possible to Drive Less
Los Angeles’ much-hyped “Carmaggedon,” in which the 405 Freeway was closed over the weekend, was mostly a non-event. Instead of producing a chaotic, traffic-choked scene all over L.A., the unprecedented road closure resulted in an even more unprecedented scenario, in which huge numbers of Angelenos figured out something to do that …
PBR, the Quintessential Cheap Hipster Beer, Goes Hollywood
The headquarters for Schlitz, Old Style, and Pabst Blue Ribbon beers is moving from the Midwest to Los Angeles. Could this make the favorite swill of hipsters unhip—or even worse, expensive?
‘The Woodstock of Dentistry’
Crowds of thousands flock to southern California, as if pulled by some magical force. And that magical force is the acute pain they feel from both their teeth that are desperately in need of dental attention, and from the fact that they have no insurance and no other options but to sleep out overnight waiting for dentists offering free treatment.