Search: in America's Most Walkable Cities, 2011

By Jason Notte, The Street
August 3, 2011




Living within a quick drive of work, the store, school or public transportation is nice, but only having all of those items a few blocks away makes your neighborhood "walkable."

The people behind Walk Score, a Seattle-based service that rates the convenience and transit access of 10,000 neighborhoods in 2,500 cities, have spent the past four years judging the distance between residents and amenities and ranking places based on the results. That "walkability" led to the first set of rankings in 2008 and the use of those rankings by more than 10,000 cities, civic organizations and real estate groups in the years that followed.
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Walk Score's ideal neighborhoods have either a main street or public space at the center, enough people to keep public transit running frequently and a good mix of housing and businesses. Parks and other public spaces make up a large part of the equation, as do amenities designed around pedestrians, nearby schools and workplaces and "complete streets" designed for pedestrians, cyclists and transit.

"Very often, you'll see a good pedestrian design with sidewalks and crosswalks that make a city more accessible and walkable," says Josh Herst, chief executive of Walk Score. "Even in cities that on the whole aren't that walkable, there are neighborhoods that are great places to walk."

A CEOs For Cities study based on Walk Score data insists that a walkable neighborhood adds an average $3,000 to a home's selling price. And University of British Columbia professor Lawrence Frank found that residents of walkable neighborhoods tend to be at least seven pounds lighter than their counterparts in more sprawling areas.

Here's a look at Walk Score's Most Walkable Cities of 2011 and the amenity-packed neighborhoods that made the difference:

5. Philadelphia
Walk Score: 74.1

Any tourist who's seen Independence Hall and stopped into a Wawa for Tastykakes and directions can tell you that the city's most walkable neighborhoods in Center City, the Old City and along the riverfront near Penn's Landing are some of the easiest to navigate in the country. What locals probably won't tell the average cheesesteak-chomping out-of-towner is just how easy it is to get around South Philly and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Philadelphia City Hall in America's 5th most walkable city.
Photo: flickr | bengrey

Except for the extreme northeast, southwest and northwest corners of the city, much of Philadelphia's fairly easy to get around. About 95% of the city is easily accessible by means other than a car, but it's just a matter of doing so.

There's no shortage of cars in this town, and the city's conflicted relationship with the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority may have something to do with it. Septa's bus, subway, light rail and commuter rail services handled 327.6 million passengers this year, including travelers taking the airport line right into Center City. That's great and all, but it's still less than the ridership of a Boston MBTA that covers a city nearly one-third Philadelphia's size.

4. Chicago
Walk Score: 74.3

The city's broad shoulders aren't nearly as important as its broad sidewalks and bus and subway options when it comes to walkability.

The city's restaurants, theaters, shops and other amenities are closer and more accessible the nearer one gets to Lake Michigan. Lake View and Wrigleyville or West Town and Wicker Park are great place for living car free. Stray too far west or south, however, and you'll end up in the 4% of Chicago neighborhoods that need an automotive assist.

Chicago skyline in America's 4th most walkable city.
Photo: flickr | Bryce_edwards

The Chicago Transit Authority helps level the extremely wide playing field with buses and trains that helped roughly 515 million riders get through the city last year. That includes the throngs of tourists and business travelers flying into O'Hare and Midway and taking CTA trains into the city. Another 70.5 million riders who take the commuter rail in from the suburbs each day make a strong argument to keep the car under wraps until the snow stops falling.

The town can still be a mixed bag when it comes to getting around, however. If you're barhopping or looking for good Italian beef in Old Town, Lincoln Park or Near North Side, you won't have to stray far. If you're trying to make it to a play in Pilsen after a barbecue in New City, however, it's a crapshoot.

3. Boston
Walk Score: 79.2

Residents of the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, the South End and Fenway who feel they weren't built for cars can sleep soundly knowing their neighborhoods weren't either.

It's easy to get to just about any point in this city without ever sitting behind the wheel of a car because the city's first residents needed it to be that way. The winding streets Mayor Thomas Menino calls "cow paths" were often just that. The city's Colonial-era survival was based on its density, residents' proximity to goods and services and the ability to get those goods home without carrying them a great distance.

Boston skyline in America's 3rd most walkable city.
Photo: flickr | Manu_H

"Cities that were largely built in World War II and post-World War II were built with the car at the center of them," Herst says. "When you think about cities like Boston and New York City, at least at the center of them, they were built into meaningful metropolises before the car."

The oldest subway system in America has helped make it easier for Bostonians to get from place to place, but T riders disenchanted with the aging system might prefer pulling cattle. The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority moved more than 373 million riders through its light rail, commuter rail, ferries and buses last year, with 149 million of those riders taking a subway that has had portions running since 1897.

2. San Francisco
Walk Score: 84.9

Walk Score considered it the most walkable city in America back in 2008 and it probably still would be if more New Yorkers weren't paying exorbitant sums for shoeboxes in SoHo or "lofts" with a few hundred feet on the Lower East Side.

There hasn't been a whole lot of change since then, which is just how residents who've tried to minimize car-related change like it. San Francisco's compact, concise layout didn't take the car into consideration when it was incorporated in 1850 or after it was rebuilt following the 1906 earthquake. Even while the rest of America was having a love affair with the car during the 1950s, local protesters were busy stopping freeways from running through town.

S.F.'s 'Painted Ladies' in America's 2nd most walkable city.
Photo: flickr | Paul Lowry

As a result, 17 of its neighborhoods rank among the top 150 most walkable in the country, with Chinatown and the Financial District sitting behind only New York's TriBeCa, SoHo and Little Italy. Only 1% of the city lives in areas dependent on cars.

This has made the city's mass transit especially vital. Despite the expense and lack of deals for monthly passes, the Bay Area Rapid Transit subway system carried more than 100 million passengers last year and the San Francisco Municipal Railway took on another 209.5 million. That doesn't include other commuter rail and bus service from Silicon Valley and elsewhere that added more than 20 million riders to the mix. San Francisco might want to consider clamoring for a walkability recount.

"The margin is very small," Herst says. "Both cities are very walkable and we're calling on our community to vote for the city they think is more walkable to help break the virtual tie."

1. New York
Walk Score: 85.3

Manhattan's 16 miles long and two miles wide and has been walkable since the days when the only other transportation option involved an animal. Densely packed areas such as Brooklyn's Fort Green, Park Slope and Carroll Gardens and Bay Ridge, Queens' Sunnyside and Astoria/Long Island City and the South Bronx, University Heights and Fordham neighborhoods in the Bronx are giving Manhattan a run for the money thanks to tightly packed areas that are only increasing in density.

"New York's narrow move past San Francisco in the 2011 ranking is largely a result of updated census data," Herst says. "There are more people living in more walkable neighborhoods in New York."

N.Y.'s Central Park in America's most walkable city.
Photo: flickr | ZeroOne

The Metropolitan Transit Authority is feeling every bit of that growth, too. Last year, the MTA moved more than 3.2 billion riders with its buses and subways, with more than two-thirds of that total riding the rails. That doesn't even count the 81 million commuter rail riders taking the Metro-North, another 95 million on the Long Island Railroad, 4.3 million on the Staten Island Railway and millions more coming in on New Jersey trains.

Not only is the overwhelming majority of New York eminently walkable, but only 2% of all New Yorkers live in neighborhoods that require owning a car.


Source(http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-most-walkable-cities-2011.html)

America's 10 Sickest Housing Markets

By Charles B. Stockdale, Douglas A. McIntyre and Michael B. Sauter

For three years, the real estate market has been going in one direction — primarily down. Some areas, however, have begun to recover. Recent S&P/Case-Shiller data show that among the top 20 housing markets in the U.S., 18 had very modest improvements in sales prices during May. Others, like Washington and Boston, have began to at least stabilize from a year ago.

More from 247WallSt.com:

• 10 Signs The Double-Dip Recession Has Begun

• The Countries With the Fastest-Growing Populations

• States Where People Pay the Most (and Least) in Taxes

Few markets, however, can match Washington and Boston. Robert Shiller has been stating that home prices could fall another 10% in the next year. Inventories in some major metropolitan areas would take years of sales to get back to 2005 levels. Then, the normal inventory of homes for sale was replaced on average every six months and it was unusual for a house to be on the market for a year. Foreclosure rates remain high and only the robo-signing scandal has slowed the process. Once this is resolved, economists fear the market will be flooded with even more vacant, unsold homes.

24/7 Wall St. has taken a new look at the housing market to find the very weakest cities by identifying those with the highest homeowner vacancy rates and rental vacancy rates. These are markets where demand has clearly collapsed. These are cities where the requirement for living space has dropped well below the national average. Further, vacancy rates of many cities were stable during the recession, but accelerated sharply higher in the last year. Similarly, housing prices in several of these markets have decreased at a faster rate in the last three quarters than during the recession. These cities, like Detroit, St. Louis, Dayton, and Atlanta, also tend to be larger and older among the top 75 metropolitan areas. Their economies were damaged long before the recession.

Methodology: 24/7 Wall St. pulled Census data on the 75 largest U.S. metropolitan areas and ranked the cities with the highest overall vacancy rates for both homeowner vacancy and rental vacancy for the second quarter of 2011. We picked the cities with the worst rates in each of the two categories to create meta-data ranks. We then removed the cities that had either improved homeowner vacancy rate in either the last twelve months or the last quarter. We believed that any sign of improvement in homeowner vacancies, the more telling of the vacancy rates, should disqualify a city. To improve our analysis, we also looked at unemployment rates for these cities provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We also used historical median home prices, as provided by the National Association of Realtors.

The analysis shows that some cities have home vacancy rates over 5% and rental vacancy rates over 10%. Obviously, these levels of unused inventory have the effect of driving down both home and rental prices month after month. It also means that there is comparatively little demand for the purchase of new or existing homes. These ten markets are essentially dead as far as real estate prices and sales activity are concerned.

These are America's ten sickest housing markets.

1. Tucson, AZ
Homeowner vacancy rates: 6.8% (1st)
Rental vacancy rates: 15.9% (6th)
Total housing units: 440,909
Unemployment: 7.8%

Tucson's homeowner vacancy rate was 3.2% one year ago. It is now over double that. The city had a booming residential housing market before the crash. Since then, demand is so low that median home prices have dropped 18% in the past year and 33% since 2008. In addition, the city has among the highest rate of foreclosures in the country.

2. Indianapolis, IN
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.2% (5th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13.5% (10th)
Total housing units: 757,441
Unemployment: 7.8%

The average home price has dropped by $20,000, or 15.3%, between the second quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of this year. Indianapolis's home vacancy rate of 5.2% is the fifth-highest in the country. Its rental vacancy of 13.5% of units is the tenth highest in the country. In 2009, while vacancy had not even reached its worst point, the mayor's office of Indianapolis recognized the serious problem the city faced. The city's plan to help solve the abandoned home issue states: "Indianapolis, like many communities, faces a significant challenge in dealing with vacant and abandoned properties. This challenge is exacerbated both by weaknesses in the local and regional housing markets — including an oversupply of housing relative to demand — and by the high and growing rate of foreclosures."

3. Memphis, TN
Homeowner vacancy rates: 4% (9th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13.5% (11th)
Total housing units: 550,896
Unemployment: 10.1%

Memphis's slow economic recovery has kept vacancy rates high. The metropolitan area's homeowner vacancy rate has increased from 2.5% in 2010 to 4% in the second quarter of 2011. In the city's defense, its rental vacancy rate has decreased from a staggering 21.2% in 2010 to 13.5%. This is still among the highest in the country, but it is an improvement. The unemployment rate remains at 10.1%, which is significantly higher than the national average of 9.2%.

4. Atlanta, GA
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.4% (4th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11.8% (17th)
Total housing units: 2,165,495
Unemployment: 9.7%

Atlanta's homeowner vacancy rate of 5.4% is the fourth highest among major U.S. cities. The city, which had a significant influx of new residents, particularly from the northeast, has been hit hard. Atlanta's unemployment rate of 9.7% is well above the national average of 9.2%. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city had lost nearly 25,000 jobs between June of 2010 and June of this year. Between 2008 and the first quarter of this year, homes have lost more than a third of their value, dropping in price by nearly $50,000.

5. Baton Rouge, LA
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.9% (11th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13% (12th)
Total housing units: 329,729
Unemployment: 8.4%

Baton Rouge did not emerge from the recession unscathed, but it did perform better than many other cities in the U.S., in part because it is the state's capital city and in part because of the money brought in through Hurricane Katrina recovery work. However, according to one local news station, the area has built more housing structures than it could fill following Katrina. The city has not been able to break free of this situation, as both homeowner vacancy rates and rental vacancy rates have increased not only since last year, but since the last quarter as well.
By Charles B. Stockdale, Douglas A. McIntyre and Michael B. Sauter

For three years, the real estate market has been going in one direction — primarily down. Some areas, however, have begun to recover. Recent S&P/Case-Shiller data show that among the top 20 housing markets in the U.S., 18 had very modest improvements in sales prices during May. Others, like Washington and Boston, have began to at least stabilize from a year ago.

More from 247WallSt.com:

• 10 Signs The Double-Dip Recession Has Begun

• The Countries With the Fastest-Growing Populations

• States Where People Pay the Most (and Least) in Taxes

Few markets, however, can match Washington and Boston. Robert Shiller has been stating that home prices could fall another 10% in the next year. Inventories in some major metropolitan areas would take years of sales to get back to 2005 levels. Then, the normal inventory of homes for sale was replaced on average every six months and it was unusual for a house to be on the market for a year. Foreclosure rates remain high and only the robo-signing scandal has slowed the process. Once this is resolved, economists fear the market will be flooded with even more vacant, unsold homes.

24/7 Wall St. has taken a new look at the housing market to find the very weakest cities by identifying those with the highest homeowner vacancy rates and rental vacancy rates. These are markets where demand has clearly collapsed. These are cities where the requirement for living space has dropped well below the national average. Further, vacancy rates of many cities were stable during the recession, but accelerated sharply higher in the last year. Similarly, housing prices in several of these markets have decreased at a faster rate in the last three quarters than during the recession. These cities, like Detroit, St. Louis, Dayton, and Atlanta, also tend to be larger and older among the top 75 metropolitan areas. Their economies were damaged long before the recession.

Methodology: 24/7 Wall St. pulled Census data on the 75 largest U.S. metropolitan areas and ranked the cities with the highest overall vacancy rates for both homeowner vacancy and rental vacancy for the second quarter of 2011. We picked the cities with the worst rates in each of the two categories to create meta-data ranks. We then removed the cities that had either improved homeowner vacancy rate in either the last twelve months or the last quarter. We believed that any sign of improvement in homeowner vacancies, the more telling of the vacancy rates, should disqualify a city. To improve our analysis, we also looked at unemployment rates for these cities provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We also used historical median home prices, as provided by the National Association of Realtors.

The analysis shows that some cities have home vacancy rates over 5% and rental vacancy rates over 10%. Obviously, these levels of unused inventory have the effect of driving down both home and rental prices month after month. It also means that there is comparatively little demand for the purchase of new or existing homes. These ten markets are essentially dead as far as real estate prices and sales activity are concerned.

These are America's ten sickest housing markets.

1. Tucson, AZ
Homeowner vacancy rates: 6.8% (1st)
Rental vacancy rates: 15.9% (6th)
Total housing units: 440,909
Unemployment: 7.8%

Tucson's homeowner vacancy rate was 3.2% one year ago. It is now over double that. The city had a booming residential housing market before the crash. Since then, demand is so low that median home prices have dropped 18% in the past year and 33% since 2008. In addition, the city has among the highest rate of foreclosures in the country.

2. Indianapolis, IN
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.2% (5th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13.5% (10th)
Total housing units: 757,441
Unemployment: 7.8%

The average home price has dropped by $20,000, or 15.3%, between the second quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of this year. Indianapolis's home vacancy rate of 5.2% is the fifth-highest in the country. Its rental vacancy of 13.5% of units is the tenth highest in the country. In 2009, while vacancy had not even reached its worst point, the mayor's office of Indianapolis recognized the serious problem the city faced. The city's plan to help solve the abandoned home issue states: "Indianapolis, like many communities, faces a significant challenge in dealing with vacant and abandoned properties. This challenge is exacerbated both by weaknesses in the local and regional housing markets — including an oversupply of housing relative to demand — and by the high and growing rate of foreclosures."

3. Memphis, TN
Homeowner vacancy rates: 4% (9th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13.5% (11th)
Total housing units: 550,896
Unemployment: 10.1%

Memphis's slow economic recovery has kept vacancy rates high. The metropolitan area's homeowner vacancy rate has increased from 2.5% in 2010 to 4% in the second quarter of 2011. In the city's defense, its rental vacancy rate has decreased from a staggering 21.2% in 2010 to 13.5%. This is still among the highest in the country, but it is an improvement. The unemployment rate remains at 10.1%, which is significantly higher than the national average of 9.2%.

4. Atlanta, GA
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.4% (4th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11.8% (17th)
Total housing units: 2,165,495
Unemployment: 9.7%

Atlanta's homeowner vacancy rate of 5.4% is the fourth highest among major U.S. cities. The city, which had a significant influx of new residents, particularly from the northeast, has been hit hard. Atlanta's unemployment rate of 9.7% is well above the national average of 9.2%. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the city had lost nearly 25,000 jobs between June of 2010 and June of this year. Between 2008 and the first quarter of this year, homes have lost more than a third of their value, dropping in price by nearly $50,000.

5. Baton Rouge, LA
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.9% (11th)
Rental vacancy rates: 13% (12th)
Total housing units: 329,729
Unemployment: 8.4%

Baton Rouge did not emerge from the recession unscathed, but it did perform better than many other cities in the U.S., in part because it is the state's capital city and in part because of the money brought in through Hurricane Katrina recovery work. However, according to one local news station, the area has built more housing structures than it could fill following Katrina. The city has not been able to break free of this situation, as both homeowner vacancy rates and rental vacancy rates have increased not only since last year, but since the last quarter as well.

6. Dayton, OH
Homeowner vacancy rates: 4.7% (7th)
Rental vacancy rates: 10.7% (23rd)
Total housing units: 385,160
Unemployment: 9.3%

Dayton's home vacancy rate of 4.7% is the seventh-highest in the country among major cities. At one time, Dayton was a much larger city and an economic powerhouse. The Ohio city, which was a major manufacturing center, was at one point awarded more patents each year than any other place in the U.S. The city has a particularly bad unemployment rate of 9.3%. Median housing price, which stood at $109,000 in 2008, has fallen by 29%, or $27,000, between 2008 and the first quarter of this year.

7. Detroit, MI (Tied for 8th)
Homeowner vacancy rates: 2.4% (32nd)
Rental vacancy rates: 17.2% (3rd)
Total housing units: 1,886,537
Unemployment: 11.6%

The recession hasn't been kind to Detroit. Part of the Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan area, it has been among the hardest hit cities in the country. Since 2005, the metropolitan area has lost approximately 323,400 jobs. Unemployment in the Motor City almost reached 30% in 2009. According to one estimate, the city had 90,000 abandoned or vacant lots or residential homes in 2010. One of the reasons the city is not at the top of this list is that the city had so many vacant properties that a huge portion of them were demolished. Regardless, at 17.2%, the rate of rental vacancy is still the third highest rate in the nation.

8. Kansas City, MO (Tied for 8th)
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.7% (13th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11% (22nd)
Total housing units: 883,099
Unemployment: 8.4%

Kansas City's rental vacancy rate of 11% is the 22nd highest of any major city in the country, while its homeowner vacancy rate of 3.7% is the 13th highest. The city has a relatively high rate of unemployment, at 8.4%. While it's below the national average of 9.2%, it is well above the state average of 6.6%. The median home price in the city is down by $19,000, or more than 13%, since 2008. Most of that decline came in the last year. Between the second quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of this year, prices dropped by more than $25,000.

9. St. Louis, MO
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.3% (19th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11.4% (18th)
Total housing units: 1,236,222
Unemployment: 8.6%

In 2008 and 2009, the St. Louis area has shed more than 82,000 jobs. This loss had a negative impact on the city's real estate market. Vacancy rates have continued to rise, increasing from under 2% one year ago to 3.3% in the recent quarter. The rise in vacancy rates has occurred while the median sales price for single family homes has fallen more than 19% since 2008. While rental vacancy rate, which is currently at 11.4%, has decreased slightly since the last quarter, it is still 1.6 percentage points higher than it was last year. St. Louis office vacancy rate is at 12.6%, according to real estate information company CoStar Group.

10. Oklahoma City, OK
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.2% (6th)
Rental vacancy rates: 9.6% (34th)
Total housing units: 539,077
Unemployment: 4.9%

Oklahoma City had the sixth highest homeowner vacancy rate in the country as of the second quarter of this year. The city's unemployment rate is just 5.3%, but this low rate has not helped improve high home and rental vacancy. From last year, home sales in Oklahoma state dropped by 7.7%, according to the state's newspaper NewsOK. In the city, sales were flat from last year. Between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, the median home price in the city dropped by more than 8%.

___

6. Dayton, OH
Homeowner vacancy rates: 4.7% (7th)
Rental vacancy rates: 10.7% (23rd)
Total housing units: 385,160
Unemployment: 9.3%

Dayton's home vacancy rate of 4.7% is the seventh-highest in the country among major cities. At one time, Dayton was a much larger city and an economic powerhouse. The Ohio city, which was a major manufacturing center, was at one point awarded more patents each year than any other place in the U.S. The city has a particularly bad unemployment rate of 9.3%. Median housing price, which stood at $109,000 in 2008, has fallen by 29%, or $27,000, between 2008 and the first quarter of this year.

7. Detroit, MI (Tied for 8th)
Homeowner vacancy rates: 2.4% (32nd)
Rental vacancy rates: 17.2% (3rd)
Total housing units: 1,886,537
Unemployment: 11.6%

The recession hasn't been kind to Detroit. Part of the Detroit-Warren-Livonia metropolitan area, it has been among the hardest hit cities in the country. Since 2005, the metropolitan area has lost approximately 323,400 jobs. Unemployment in the Motor City almost reached 30% in 2009. According to one estimate, the city had 90,000 abandoned or vacant lots or residential homes in 2010. One of the reasons the city is not at the top of this list is that the city had so many vacant properties that a huge portion of them were demolished. Regardless, at 17.2%, the rate of rental vacancy is still the third highest rate in the nation.

8. Kansas City, MO (Tied for 8th)
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.7% (13th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11% (22nd)
Total housing units: 883,099
Unemployment: 8.4%

Kansas City's rental vacancy rate of 11% is the 22nd highest of any major city in the country, while its homeowner vacancy rate of 3.7% is the 13th highest. The city has a relatively high rate of unemployment, at 8.4%. While it's below the national average of 9.2%, it is well above the state average of 6.6%. The median home price in the city is down by $19,000, or more than 13%, since 2008. Most of that decline came in the last year. Between the second quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of this year, prices dropped by more than $25,000.

9. St. Louis, MO
Homeowner vacancy rates: 3.3% (19th)
Rental vacancy rates: 11.4% (18th)
Total housing units: 1,236,222
Unemployment: 8.6%

In 2008 and 2009, the St. Louis area has shed more than 82,000 jobs. This loss had a negative impact on the city's real estate market. Vacancy rates have continued to rise, increasing from under 2% one year ago to 3.3% in the recent quarter. The rise in vacancy rates has occurred while the median sales price for single family homes has fallen more than 19% since 2008. While rental vacancy rate, which is currently at 11.4%, has decreased slightly since the last quarter, it is still 1.6 percentage points higher than it was last year. St. Louis office vacancy rate is at 12.6%, according to real estate information company CoStar Group.

10. Oklahoma City, OK
Homeowner vacancy rates: 5.2% (6th)
Rental vacancy rates: 9.6% (34th)
Total housing units: 539,077
Unemployment: 4.9%

Oklahoma City had the sixth highest homeowner vacancy rate in the country as of the second quarter of this year. The city's unemployment rate is just 5.3%, but this low rate has not helped improve high home and rental vacancy. From last year, home sales in Oklahoma state dropped by 7.7%, according to the state's newspaper NewsOK. In the city, sales were flat from last year. Between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, the median home price in the city dropped by more than 8%.


Source(http://finance.yahoo.com/real-estate/article/113245/americas-sickest-housing-markets-247wallst)

maldonresearchgroup: America's Most Expensive Home is for Cowboys

maldonresearchgroup: America's Most Expensive Home is for Cowboys: "This $175 million luxury cutting horse and cattle ranch is in a valley next to the town of Jackson, WY. Photo: Forbes Images Even as so ..."

Barchart.com

Barchart.com

Home Sales Forecast to Grow

Home Sales Forecast to Grow

Flipping Out Flipping Homes

The monetary hunger of millions has driven flipping homes to earn a reputation for being an investment ploy to make fast money through a slew of TV shows. tv show But the weak housing market has sent some of those trying to flip homes to flipping out.

Distressed properties, including foreclosures and short sales can be purchased cheap and with an investment of time and money can be transformed into valuable commodities. However, the collapse of the housing market is changing the rules flipping homes.

In some cases, wannabe flippers are finding that homes are worth less than they anticipated. In areas where home prices have been most depressed flipping homes have flopped as flippers are left holding the keys to their flips and a bloated mortgage. “It’s been pure hell,” said Roger Baylor, 37, a Las Vegas handyman who used to make his living in construction work in home building.


Source (http://www.housingpredictor.com/2011/flipping-out.html)

The Best Places to Buy a Home Right Now

By Nathan Vardi and David Whelan, Forbes.com
May 12, 2011
Though home prices in most areas around the country remain weak, the attractiveness of purchasing a home continues to diminish in the wake of the real estate bust. Fears of price erosion, a weak economy and foreclosure dog markets coast to coast.

But not everywhere. In places like the suburbs of Rochester, N.Y., houses look like a great buy. You can get a relatively new 3,000-square-foot home on a nice quarter of an acre lot in a good school district for between $300,000 and $400,000. "The real estate here is very inexpensive, it's about the same as renting and it actually makes sense for families," says Delores Conway, a real estate economics professor at the University of Rochester. "The houses are solid investments with good school systems that are fairly priced."
In Pictures: Best Places to Buy a HomeIn Pictures: Best Places to Buy a Home

According to recent data put together by real estate website Zillow, Rochester is the best place to buy a home in the United States. One of the reasons Zillow rates Rochester so highly is that its foreclosure rate is a minuscule 0.24%.

In order to figure out the best places to purchase a home in the country, Zillow looked at four statistical measures in 125 metro areas as of the end of February. These factors included affordability, as measured by home price to income ratios; the unemployment picture (both the absolute figure and how it's trending over time); the foreclosure situation; and year-over-year housing price trends.

"The list is populated by markets that did not participate in the housing run up from 2000 to 2006 and therefore their housing recession has been milder," says Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. "These markets are very affordable, where people are typically spending under 2.5 times their income on a house so it's pretty affordable, and they are now spending what they were paying in the 15 years between 1985 and 2000."

The housing recession in places like Pittsburgh was relatively mild, helping to land Pittsburgh second on the list of best places to purchase a home. Like Rochester, Pittsburgh depends on major university employers such as the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon. The former Steel City's median home price is an inexpensive $103,900.

The best places to purchase a home in America are mostly in the heartland, reflecting the coastal nature of the housing boom and bust. None of the best places to purchase a home are located on the West Coast in states like California, Oregon and Washington, not to mention Nevada and Arizona.

There are, however, places in the center of the U.S. that figure to be great for home purchases. In Oklahoma, Oklahoma City and Tulsa are both energy belt areas with strong economic fundamentals and housing markets that have been steady for years. And at 4.1% Lincoln, Neb., has the lowest unemployment rate of any metro area in the nation, and it's falling. All three cities made the list.

Here are the nation's five best places to buy a home right now:

5. Tulsa, Okla.

Tulsa is the 5th best place to buy a home now
Photo: Mark Gibson/DanitaDelimont/Newscom

The energy belt is a good place for homeownership as Tulsa residents can attest.
Midpoint price: $105,400
Foreclosure rate: 0.27%
Price appreciation quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year: -4.1% / -9.3%
Unemployment rate: 6.5%
Year-over-year change in unemployment: -1.8%

4. Oklahoma City, Okla.

Oklahoma City is the 4th best place to buy a home now
Photo: John Elk III/Lonely Planet Lonely Planet Images/Newscom

OKC has been booming job-wise, while the rest of the country recovers more slowly from the downturn.
Midpoint price: $109,400
Foreclosure rate: 0.24%
Price appreciation quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year: -3.6% / -3.9%
Unemployment rate: 5.2%
Year-over-year change in unemployment: -1.6%

3. Utica, N.Y.

Utica, NY is the 3rd best place to buy a home now
Photo: Richard Cummins/Alamy

This old industrial hub in upstate New York is still small. But it's been quietly reviving by attracting immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia while remaining affordable.
Midpoint price: $98,600
Foreclosure rate: 0.08%
Price appreciation quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year: -0.7% / 2.1%
Unemployment rate: 8.6%
Year-over-year change in unemployment: 0.1%

2. Pittsburgh, Pa.

Pittsburgh is the 2nd best place to buy a home now
Photo: Jeremy Edwards/Istockphoto

Where else can you find a typical home that costs just barely six figures, root for championship sports teams, and get hired by a top university or hospital? Pittsburgh, the host of 2009's G-20 conference, has it all. What's more, Western Pennsylvania's nascent natural gas industry should provide growth for years to come.
Midpoint price: $103,900
Foreclosure rate: 0.50%
Price appreciation quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year: -2.2% / -1.5%
Unemployment rate: 7.4%
Year-over-year change in unemployment: -1.5%

1. Rochester, N.Y.

Rochester is the best place to buy a home now
Photo: Andre Jenny Stock Connection Worldwide/Newscom

Known as the historical headquarters of past-their-prime corporate icons like Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb, Rochester suffered decades of painful contraction before finding its equilibrium. The end result is affordable housing underpinned by strong remaining employers like the University of Rochester.
Midpoint price: $116,000
Foreclosure rate: 0.24%
Price appreciation quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year: -2.0% / -3.9%
Unemployment rate: 7.7%
Year-over-year change in unemployment: -1.0%



Source (http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/the-best-places-to-buy-a-home-right-now.html)

" Why a Housing Double Dip Could Kill the Recovery "

At a bargain-basement auction of foreclosed homes held on Jan. 29 in a New York City Sheraton hotel, one of the music tracks that played as bidders prepared to pounce on distressed properties was James Brown's "Living in America."
It was either a major planning blunder or a brilliant thematic choice. Either way, the song's lyrics ("everybody's working overtime ...") were a strangely fitting sound track to a new American reality: while corporate profits rise and economic growth returns, the housing market is only getting worse.

The latest figures from the Case-Shiller home-price index, showing a fifth straight month of price decreases — including major drops in cities such as Boston, Washington, Las Vegas and Dallas — have economists worried that we may be headed for a double dip in the housing market this year, which could restrain the economic growth we're finally starting to see. And 2011 was supposed to be the year housing recovered; now, analysts are betting on anything from a 5% to 20% price decline.

A rising number of foreclosures, tied to persistently high unemployment, is smothering housing's rebound. According to the Mortgage Bankers Association, there are already 4.5 million homes in some stage of foreclosure. Some experts believe an additional 1.5 million may be added to the pile this year. With that kind of distressed inventory on the market, it could take four to five years for prices to come back up, according to Capital Economics senior U.S. economist Paul Dales.

What's particularly troubling is that data suggests a good number of those properties belong to lower-income, higher-risk borrowers who had already gotten a break on their mortgage payments via federal programs designed to reduce defaults. November data (the latest available) on these so-called modified loans showed that 45% of them had been canceled, meaning that the borrowers very likely redefaulted, even after the payments had been adjusted.

This is yet another example of the bifurcated nature of America's economic "recovery." The Fed can keep interest rates low to encourage lending, and the government can dole out tax breaks to encourage spending, but as Dales points out, "If you don't have a job, you aren't going to be able to pay your mortgage." Indeed, the biggest factor in mortgage defaults is unemployment — and as we all know by now, the unemployment rate is still unnaturally high for this point in a recovery, especially among vulnerable groups like minorities and those without college degrees.

Unfortunately, the trouble in the mortgage market contributes to the trouble with job creation. "Lower home prices don't help jobs, because they constrain consumer spending," notes Yale economist and housing expert Robert Shiller. Job growth is tied to spending, because without more expected sales, companies won't hire.
But people whose homes are decreasing in value won't spend; it's the wealth effect in reverse. So the poor housing market is holding back everything. Shiller, who just returned from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, believes that the world leaders and policymakers who were there "don't really realize the extent of the suffering that's occurring. They are too insulated. But it's a vicious cycle that can make people feel worthless."

Don't get too comfortable if you live in an area that hasn't suffered big price cuts, because the problem could spread in the coming months. The latest numbers indicate that the lower end of the housing market is seeing the sharpest declines. But those declines could well drag down the value of higher-priced properties. Given that U.S. households still keep about a quarter of their wealth in property, the implications for consumer spending are sobering. "More than keeping interest rates low, the best thing that Washington could do for the housing market is to try and create some jobs — quickly," says Dales.

In lieu of that, policymakers might also get more creative about how mortgages are structured. In his 2008 book, The Subprime Solution, Shiller suggested a drastic fix to the current problem — a continuously changing mortgage balance that would be reset periodically based on both home prices and unemployment.
Thus, mortgages would reflect ongoing economic reality, and banks would have to keep lending. Meanwhile, to help banks cope with the risk involved, a market would be created to let them trade home-price futures, rather than splicing and dicing baskets of high-risk mortgages and then passing the risk on to investors. (A small market of this kind already exists at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.) "We need to be creative.
It's all about democratizing finance and bringing more of the benefits of it to individual consumers," says Shiller. These and other housing-market reform ideas were deemed too radical when the crisis began. As it is now, they might not be radical enough.
(Source: http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,2045854,00.html)

Earth Day 2011: Five Ways to Help the Environment From Home

In honor of Earth Day this Friday, April 22, we're offering up a few tips on how to be more green at home and in your community. There are many ways, both small and large, to be more environmentally friendly from home. Here's a grab bag of our top five:

1. Recycle
Waste Management has made it easy to do curbside recycling in Arcadia. Items that are accepted for recycling are paper products, including computer paper, catalogs, junk mail, copier paper, phone books, grocery bags, gift wrap and envelops, even if they have “windows”; cardboard, including food packaging such as cereal boxes, cake-mix boxes, frozen food boxes, egg cartons and soda/beer carriers; all beverage containers marked “CA Redemption Value” or “CA Cash Refund”; plastic containers labeled #1-#7; aluminum and tin cans, liquor bottles, empty aerosol cans, pie tins, glass jars and bottles. See the full list here. Just drop the recyclables in the blue bin and put it on the curb on trash day.

2. Replace light bulbs
Buy some compact florescent light bulbs (CFLs) to replace your incandescents when they burn out, or if you're feeling really "green," save some energy and replace them all now. They last a lot longer and save quite a bit on the energy bill overtime.

3. Install a low-flow showerhead
Low-flow showerheads cut down on the amount of water coming out when you shower, but you really can't tell the difference, except for a lighter water bill! They pay for themselves quickly.

4. Ditch your dryer
We pay a lot of hidden taxes for the wonderful sun that we get all year long, why not put some of that instant solar power to work and reap the reward of sun-fresh clothes. The dryer takes a lot of energy to run, so start out trying half-time loads, hanging the clothes out to dry when they're damp, then eventually go all the way and ditch that dryer.

5. Compost
According to the Environmental Defense Fund, 18 percent of the waste in an average U.S. household comes from the yard and garden, a huge amount of mostly bio-waste that can be returned to the garden.

The composting process essentially involves setting aside certain types of organic waste apart from normal trash and collecting it in a composting bin somewhere outside, where it decomposes and becomes a nutrient-rich soil additive or fertilizer.

Not only does this reduce waste in the dumps, it reduces the energy spent to take it there, can save you money on soil and fertilizer, reduces the use of chemical fertilizers, and plants love it!

A lot of kitchen waste (except meats, oils and bones) and most yard waste (except seeds, roots and large branches) can be used. To see a full list of what can be composted, go here, or read the Homeowner's Guide to Composting for even more details.

The City of Arcadia offers 3 x 2 foot compost bins for $30.00. Compost bins with worms can also be purchased for $65.00.

The City of Arcadia's Web site has a very infomative section on recycling, composting and disposing of e-waste that you can view by clicking here.
(Source: http://arcadia.patch.com/articles/earth-day-2011-five-ways-to-help-the-environment-from-home)

Top 10 Business Predictions for 2011

Michael Friedenberg, president and CEO of IDG Enterprise, offers up what he thinks will be the top ten trends in the IT community in 2011.
CIO — It’s the time of year for bold and brazen predictions, so I’m jumping on the bandwagon with my forecast of the Top 10 trends, priorities and events of 2011:

10. Social media will keep dominating the business conversation, following the same evolution e-commerce did as it became e-business. Soon we’ll just call it “social business.”

9. The CIO-CMO relationship will change for the better, growing closer and more collaborative. Instead of confrontational relationships, CIOs and CMOs will find common ground around customer engagement.

8. Cloud will move from an overhyped theory to an adopted practice in mainstream business. Private, public or hybrid clouds, when applied to the right business need, will be game-changing in some industries.

7. Mobile moves aggressively into the data and applications arena as enterprises leverage these devices to empower the workforce, speed decision making and grow top-line revenue.

6. Real-time analytics will define and drive the real-time organization. As analytics is layered onto the megatrends of cloud, mobile and social, its capacity to create real-time businesses becomes closer than it appears.

5. Security breaches will hit an all-time high as data keeps getting pushed beyond the enterprise walls.

4. A battle will break out between IT and the lines of business over who really owns the user interface. Who will own that “last mile” to the customer?

3. CIOs will continue evolving beyond an operational focus, spending more time transforming business processes and setting strategy.

2. Vendor consolidations will cause major support issues at your organizations and IT vendors will need to reinforce and extend their commitments to you.

1. CIO turnover will increase if businesses can’t scale. More of your energies will be spent reducing cycle times and helping your organizations increase revenue instead of cutting costs.

So, what did I miss? What are you seeing that I’m not? I welcome your thoughts, as always, and thank you for being a loyal reader of CIO.
Onward to 2011!
(Source: http://always10.blogspot.com/2011/03/top-ten-business-predictions-for-2011.html)

Serena Williams at the Beach

Serena Williams enjoys some downtime at South Beach

Absolute Financial Freedom

Before discussing how everyone can become rich, we must agree in advance about the definition of rich. Rich is relative. Some people feel rich when it has ten million dollars. Some people do not feel rich already have money even ten billion dollars. According to Forbes magazine rich people are those who have income of at least 1 million American dollars a year.

Robert T. Kiyosaki has another opinion. He quotes from Buckminster Fuller and his teacher says that the rich are not measured by how much active income. People called rich if its passive income is greater than the cost of living. The definition of passive income here is the money coming without having to work.

As an illustration exemplified Mike Tyson. He earns U.S. $ 300 million while boxing, but in 2004 he was declared bankrupt and still have a debt of U.S. $ 35 million. Therefore, Mike Tyson is not classified as rich. Included also in the category of people who are not rich are people who have an income of U.S. $ 1 million a year but the expenditure of U.S. $ 1.2 million a year.

Anthony Robbins has another opinion. For him there are 6 steps people can be called rich:

1) Financial Protection

a financial situation where we have enough money to meet the minimum monthly expenses for 2 months to 24 months without working

2) Financial Security

a financial situation where we have invested a lot of relatively safe, and results can meet these needs without having to work again, unless we choose to work. Requirements are:

1. Installment home
2. The cost of meals
3. Electricity, gas and water
4. Transportation
5. Insurance
6. Taxes (eg property tax)

3) Financial Vitality
a financial condition where we achieved quite a lot of investment is relatively safe, and the results are not only able to make ends meet on the level of Financial Security, but also can meet the following requirements without having to work, unless we choose to work.

Requirements are:

1. child education
2. amusement or entertainment needs (at least 50% of which we enjoy today)
3. buying new clothes or one of two luxury goods that make sense.

4) Financial Independence

a financial condition where we achieved quite a lot of investment is relatively safe, and the results are sufficient for us to live exactly the lifestyle that now, without having to work again for the rest of our lives. In other words we are free not to work.

5) Financial Freedom
is a financial condition where we achieved quite a lot of investment is relatively safe, and the results are sufficient for us to live the lifestyle we want

6) Absolute Financial Freedom
a financial condition where we achieved quite a lot of investment is relatively safe, and therefore we are confident that we can make real whatever we want, wherever we want, with whomever we want, as much and as long as we want.

Planning a Family Ski Vacation

It’s time to plan the family vacation – and everyone wants to go skiing. Don’t worry, skiing isn’t as expensive as you might think, and there are numerous resorts that cater to families, offering a
variety of packages designed to save you money. The problem will be choosing the destination.

Most ski resorts have websites. Start the planning process by accessing these websites to determine where you and your family might want to go for your family ski vacation. There are many different things to look for when choosing a resort. The absolute most important thing to look for is a ski school if someone in your family will need instruction.

While most resorts do have ski schools, some don’t. Don’t make the mistake of choosing a destination where one or more of your family members won’t have fun, simply because they don’t know how to ski.

Next, take a look at the slopes, lifts, and trails. You want to make sure that the resort has something to offer everyone in your family. If the resort only caters to beginners, an expert skier will become quickly bored. If you have a snowboarder in your group, and there is no snowboarding park or terrain, that snowboarder will not be happy. There are resorts that serve all winter sports – so make sure that your families interests are covered.

Lodging is the next thing to look at. You want to be comfortable, so where you will sleep at night matters a great deal. In most cases, there is a hotel right at the base of the slopes – but this isn’t necessarily the best or most affordable place to stay. Find out what your lodging options are for the area, and choose the one that is right for your family and your budget.

If you will be staying farther away from the slopes, make sure that there is transportation to and from the slopes each day!

Your family will have many more interests that you will need to search for before deciding on a particular destination and resort. Some of those interests may be dog sledding, sleigh rides, snowmobiling, snowshoeing, or horseback riding. Resorts do offer these activities, but some don’t – so be sure to ask about the winter activities, as well as the planned events during the time that you will be at the resort. This will help you plan a ski vacation that your family will enjoy and remember for the rest of their lives. hopefully useful!

History of Palm Sunday: How it starts Holy Week

The week we now call Holy Week, started with Palm Sunday. Why was this week so important that three of the gospel writers (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) devote a full third of their contents to reporting this week, and The Fourth Gospel (John) dedicates its entire last half? Jerusalem, which had a normal population of about 50,000 at this time, had at least tripled in size because of the influx of pilgrims celebrating the Jewish holiday Passover.

Early Sunday morning Jesus made his baldly public entry into the city. This was the end of all privacy and safety, and the beginning of what would be an inevitable collision course with the religious and political authorities. Crowds began to gather to see the rabbi from Galilee. The procession began accompanied by shouting and singing from the throngs as they threw down their garments on the pathway to cushion his ride – an Oriental custom still observed on occasions – as well as palm fronds, the symbol of triumph.

The Old Testament prophet Zechariah had foretold the arrival of the Messianic king in Jerusalem via the humble conveyance of a colt. Here the crowd hailed Jesus as “the son of David”, a loaded name used at a loaded time. The priestly establishment was understandably disturbed, as the palm was the national emblem of an independent Palestine. These were Jewish flags. What if Jesus should claim to be the heir of King David?

Recent archeological excavations have turned up Roman coins, which have the head of the Roman Emperor Tiberias (considered idolatrous to the Jewish subjects) but overstamped with a palm.

The “conspiracy” against Jesus had been building for at least 3 years, and the sources record seven instances of official plotting against him, two efforts at arrest, and three assassination attempts before this time. This intrigue was no spur of the moment idea. A formal decision to arrest Jesus had in fact been made several months earlier.

The Jewish religious officials were afraid that if Jesus were to continue performing his signs, he would win over the people and the Romans would come in and destroy the Temple and nation. According to legal custom at that time, a court crier had to announce publicly or post an official “wanted” handbill in the larger towns of Judea about forty days prior to a trial. Small wonder that there was some debate over whether Jesus would dare appear in Jerusalem for the next Passover. This discussion ended abruptly on Palm Sunday.

There were political reasons for dealing with Jesus. There had been a dozen uprisings in Palestine in the previous 100 years, most of them subdued by Roman force. Another Messianic rebellion under Jesus would only shatter the precarious balance of authority, break Rome’s patience, and might lead to direct occupation by Roman legions.

Religiously, Jesus was a dangerous item. The people were hailing the Teacher from Galilee as something more than a man, and Jesus was not denying or blunting this blasphemous adulation. Personally, the Pharisees had been bested by Jesus in public debate, being called vipers, whitewashed tombs, and devourers of widow’s houses.

Humiliated, they would be only too happy to conspire with the scribes, elders, and chief priests. There were economic motives for opposing Jesus as well. Seeing the commercialization of the Temple, Jesus had driven the dealers and animals out, as well as turning over the tables of the moneychangers causing a major disruption in business. There were many reasons for dealing with Jesus.
(Source: http://billpetro.com/history-of-palm-sunday)

The Statue of Liberty

The National Parks Service has reopened Liberty Island to visitors
but access to the statue and pedestal will remain closed until further notice.
Next to the flag, it's America's most famous symbol for freedom an icon for the immigrant, Liberty Enlightening the World as it is officially titled is familiarly just the Statue of Liberty.

Join us on this PhotoTour as we go from lower Manhattan to Liberty's crown! All while picking up a little history along the way.
We begin here in Battery Park on the tip of Manhattan at this circular fortress called Castle Clinton. Built in 1811 to defend against British attacks, it now serves as the ticket and information center for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island ferry rides.

Here inside Castle Clinton, the circular structure to your right houses the ticket booth. Visiting the statue does not require an admission fee. This ticket is for the ferry which is the only way to get to the island.
Currently, the ferry fee is $10 adults, $8 seniors, $4 children (4-12) and free for children under 4. Passing through Castle Clinton takes us to the water's edge where you wait on line for the ferry. There's no cover out there and it gets quite hot in the summer so bring your sunscreen!
Why is that guy standing up there?

He's telling you to get ready for the show!
For several years, these acrobatic entrepreneurs have been entertaining the lines of tourists with their amazing flipping feats.

They do request donations afterward and if you liked their show, why not give them a dollar from your group? These guys sure work for it!

The Statue of Liberty & Ellis Island ferries run about every 20 to 30 minutes beginning at 9:15 am. If you are planning to include this in your itinerary, try to do it earlier, especially in the summer months. You'll find the crowds to be smaller giving you more time to spend here or elsewhere.

Boarding the ferry, there are 3 levels to it. If you're into taking photos or home video. Try and be on the right side of the boat leaving and the left side coming back. This will put you on the direction of the statue as you approach it.

If you wish to just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride, head up top and grab a bench. There is seating below, too, but if it's a nice day, why not enjoy it!

Although you won't be seeing this dramatic image any longer, you get an idea of the great Manhattan vista as you head to Liberty Island.

Facing the opposite direction, everyone is anticipating that first close-up look at this famous statue seen in everything from history books to movies and television to all kinds of advertising.

No matter where in the world you are from, you're sure to have seen the Statue of Liberty at some point.

Here she is, the Statue of Liberty!

Since 1886 she has stood proudly in New York Harbor. A gift from "the French people to the American people," master sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi had originally envisioned this to be a new Wonder of the World to mark Egypt's Suez Canal. After history and politics got in the way, Bartholdi looked to America and saw the perfect gift to celebrate America's Centennial.

Liberty Island, until 1956, was called Bedloe's Island. When you debark the ferry, you'll walk past the concession building and towards a circular area with a flagpole in the center. Facing right, this is the magnificent view you'll see. Now, you could just take time to walk around the island but we're going right to the statue and get to the top!

Wow! Look at these lines! 2 lines form at either side and snake around to the front entrance. You have to wait on this line to climb the statue but not if you just want to take the elevator to the top of the pedestal.

Upon entering the base, you'll immediately notice this torch. It was the original which was replaced during the statue's major renovation in the 1980's. This base also redesigned at that time serves as the museum.
We'll visit that on our way down.

We start our ascent inside the pedestal. A staircase wraps it's way along the sides while an elevator is located in the center.

The elevator takes people to the top of the pedestal which has exits to outside platforms on several levels. This is best for people who may have trouble climbing or for people who do not want to wait on the long line.

We've made it past the first stage!
Now comes the tricky part. This corkscrew is a double staircase and you've got to watch your footing when you slowly climb on these small, triangular steps. It's definitely a good idea to wear sneakers or rubber-soled shoes on this excursion.

Look around at the fantastic iron skeleton which holds together the 100 tons of copper sheeting. Does it remind you of another famous large metal structure?

It was designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, famous for his Tower which a few people have seen in Paris!
Just a few more feet to go and we're at the top! You can really see the outline of the statue in the waves of hair at this part.
(Source: http://www.nyctourist.com/liberty1.htm)

Aphrodite Jones Addresses Questions of Anna Nicole Smith's Untimely Death!

Lily was a princess, she was fair-skinned and precious as a child. She did whatever she had to do; she had that certain flash every time she smiled. She`d come away from a broken home, had lots of strange affairs, with men in every walk of life who took her everywhere, but she`d never met anyone quite like the Jack of Hearts. -Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts "Bob Dylan"

True Crime with Aphrodite Jones on the Investigation Discovery Channel featured the life and career of Anna Nicole Smith last Thursday, and did a good job in answering the sticky questions about her troubling death on February 8, 2007. Specifically, Aphrodite addressed the controversy of whether Anna was responsible for her own destruction or was she enabled to death?

In order to answer this question, a biographical sketch of Anna Nicole`s life was provided, while not comprehensive, was necessary to show the forces at play in her life that may have contributed to her untimely demise. From what I could tell, the negative exceeded the positive, if the events of her life were placed on a balancing scale of the good, bad or, at times ugly.

First there`s Jim`s Krispy Fried Chicken in Mexia, then Wal-Mart, then GiGi`s Men`s Club, where she had the misfortune of meeting billionaire J. Howard Marshall. Anna`s pursuit of her desired inheritance in multiple courts of law, after the oil tycoon died (they had married in June of 1994), turned out to be the equivalent of the Greek myth of Tantalus grasping for grapes, but forever just out of reach.

I suspect this may have contributed to Anna`s spiraling out of control

prescription drug usage. The stress of making all these court appearances and being promised the money several times, only to have it taken away, must have had a catastrophic effect on Anna`s already vulnerable psychic makeup.

Nicole`s career as a show biz diva with a trashy shiek moniker pasted to it, must have contributed greatly to her dicey self-esteem. In turn, this may have fueled her abuse of prescription drugs, that were used as anodynes to cushion her disappointment at not making a smooth transition from Playboy Centerfold to legitimate Hollywood actress. And her erratic behavior, a very addictive behavior, was further manifested in her wild weight fluctuations and shopping spree rampages.

In this way of thinking, addiction to drugs is just one aspect of addiction, which comes in many colors. Anna must have had eating disorders and problems with managing money also. These bad habits should have been warning signs to those closest to her, that Anna was hooked on everything under the sun, that wasn`t nailed to the floor!

But given these obvious, very deep problems that Anna had with her marriages and her rise and fall career, the fact that she was a drug addict is a factual slap-in-the-face for me. Aphrodite Jones addresses the perplexing stance that Anna`s doctor, Sandeep Kamoor takes, with his rationalization of diagnosis given to Anna.

The most revealing part of the show was when Sandeep Kamoor talks with Aphrodite Jones and tells her he doesn`t believe Anna Nicole was an addict. Jones makes the comment these handlers just give their star clients what they want in order to stay on the payroll.

I was shocked by Kamoor`s attitude towards Anna, as if he was just giving her medication to treat a whole host of ailments. The doctor is in denial, but has gotten off in the courts, so he continues to spin this thread of fabrication, where toxic narcotics are given the euphemism of medication. This was the spin for Elvis as well.

This telling special clearly answers the question of whether the handlers of Nicole enabled her on an inevitable path of destruction. They saw a chronic drug addict, but averted their `professional eyes,` and proceeded to do absolutely nothing about it.

This includes Howard K. Stern and Anna`s psychiatrist, Dr. Khristine Eroshevitz, who actually wrote many of the prescriptions for drugs the pathologist found in Anna`s system during the autopsy.

Anna Nicole Smith`s life and death were as tragic as they come. If you carefully examine the sequence of events, that comprise her life, each one reduces her more and more, whittles her away, until you`re left with nothing.

Noone could equal her as a coroneted `Queen of the Tabloids,` except perhaps Jayne Mansfield, who eerily mirrors Anna in so many ways. By the time she splits for the Bahamas, the deal is already done. The overdose in Room 607 of the Hard Rock is practically an afterthought.

Drugs in Anna Nicole`s system at the time of her untimely death: the sedative chloral hydrate, and four benzodiazepines - Klonopin (Clonazepam), Ativan (Lorazepam), Serax (Oxazepam), and Valium (Diazepam). Furthermore, Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) and Topamax (Topiramate), which enhanced the sedative effect of the chloral hydrate.



(Source: http://thesop.org/story/20110409/aphrodite-jones-addresses-questions-of-anna-nicole-smiths-untimely-death.html)