Why You’re Not Feeling the Recovery

The market is up. Home foreclosures are down. Unemployment rolls have shrunk, and some people think the downturn is winding up. So how come you’re not seeing it?

You picked the wrong city.

If you live in Austin, Dallas or—amazingly—Pittsburgh, you have a better chance of being on the upswing. Out of the biggest 100 metropolitan areas, they’re among those with the strongest economies right now, according to the Brookings Institution, a non-partisan think tank in Washington, D.C. People who live in Fresno, Las Vegas or Providence: you’re screwed.

Lemonade Makers: The Lawn Painters

Southern California was a greener, lusher place before the downturn. Homeowners worked to keep their lawns verdant—but with recession came thousands of foreclosures, and acres of brown grass. Last summer, T.J. Davis, who is retired from the fire department, and his brother-in-law, Mike Patino, who had been laid off, saw a news story about a company in drought-plagued Northern California that painted dry lawns using an eco-sensitive dye. In October, they launched Green Genie Lawn Service in Winchester, Calif. Davis talked to Recessionwire about the opportunity they saw in making grass greener for 25 cents a square foot.

What did it take to start this up?
It wasn’t a cheap investment. We spent almost $9,000. We bought a tank for $2,500 and a trailer we got through Craigslist. The dye itself is $99 a gallon and comes in two-and-a-half gallon containers, so if you want to buy several of them, it’s expensive…

My Life in Tents

It turns out you can get a one-bedroom for under $500 in New York City—if you’re willing to sleep on the ground.

Our friends over at Brokelyn broke (ha ha) the story of three college grads who are camping out in a backyard in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Each dude is paying $100 a month to pitch his one-man tent on plywood slabs laid over the mud.

Their site is less Depression-era shantytown than nouveau poor adventure—it’s a “badass thing to do,” said Louis Frank, a 22-year-old NYU grad who works for a Manhattan bus tour company. Note to the inspired: his friend Simon Levy says the Tempurpedic mattress is key. Read more about their escapades with leaky tents, smelly feet and Craigslist here, or pop over just to check out their logo. The NY Post picked up the story this morning.

Tent cities have been springing up in other, warmer places, but this is a new one for New York. A few months ago, CNN.com reported that sales of camping gear were up. Maybe it’s not because everyone’s using their furlough for a vacation.

Recession Briefing 6.15

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Vegetable seed producers and merchants across the country are reporting sales increases of as much as 75% this year, and even some shortages, especially of staples like beans, potatoes and lettuces. (Washington Post)

Fake furloughs: Some workers work through their unpaid vacations, because they fear for the long-term safety of their positions and hope their self-sacrifice impresses the management. (New York Times)

The downturn is forcing men to spend more time at home, altering roles everywhere from the laundry room to the child-care center. (Christian Science Monitor)

Recession Briefing 6.11

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Many strip clubs are shedding their upscale trappings and catering to a thriftier clientele by offering less expensive drinks and waiving cover charges. (Wall Street Journal)

A Florida man has turned a 77-square-foot closet into his home, thus reducing his rent to $150 per month. (WPTV)

The Undies Indicator: During a recession, men’s underwear is among the first things that people stop buying. When underwear sales increase, it should signal an uptick in consumer demand. (CNBC)…

Recession Briefing 6.5

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

The recession has sparked a growing phenomenon of people dressing up as superheroes to perform community service, help the homeless and even fight crime. Superheroes also emerged as figures in the Great Depression. (CNN, Recessionwire)

Instead of feeling self-conscious about spending less, people are flaunting their frugality. Both those who have lost income and those who simply fear they may become at risk are part of the new discourse. (Washington Post)

The official unemployment rate doesn’t include millions of “involuntary part-time workers,” or those who grew discouraged and stopped looking for work. Once they are added to the unemployment mix, the April rate would be 15.8 percent. (Associated Press) Are you among the “Screwed” by the economy? See our Laid-Off 101 guide...

Life on the Edge—of the City

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness…

–From “Here is New York” by E.B. White

Driving through the parkland north of New York City and heading up the Taconic Parkway sets our current economic troubles in geologic perspective. Boulders the size of houses and trees—maples and pines and elms, some of them a hundred years old— sit imperiously as traffic flows by. The to-ings and fro-ings of the drivers and the speed and mania of commutation ebb and flow with the rising and falling of dollars to be gotten in Gotham.

My friend Steve is one person who flowed and is now ebbed, thanks to the loss of his job this spring. Over the years, he had commuted in from parts of Westchester, making his way progressively north until he was grinding it out with a car ride to a train ride. The job allowed him to support a growing family and still have access to woods and alone time.

“I never thought once about moving into the City,” says Steve…

The Recession Will End… No Time Soon

Says who: Paul Ashworth, a senior economist at Capital Economics

“A few months ago, the U.S. was in the throes of the most severe recession since the 1930s,” said Paul Ashworth, a senior economist at Capital Economics. “We’ve had some improvement, but . . . we’re still nowhere near a meaningful recovery or even a slight recovery.” (Washington Post)

Why it might be false: The evidence that the economy is improving can be convincing: a manufacturing report Monday beat expectations and indicated some growth; pending home sales rose 6.7 percent in April; and the stock market hit its highest point Monday for all of 2009. And it doesn’t hurt that the good weather seems to bring with it all kinds of hope and promise…

Recession Briefing 6.2

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

Could the plummeting economy be contributing to expanding waistlines? Something is: new data shows that in the past year the number of Americans considered obese has jumped by 1.7 percent. (Newsweek)

Spend wisely now and you’ll save a bundle over what things will cost once the recession lifts. Here are 10 things to buy now — before they get more expensive. (Time)

Fresh signs emerged Monday that the recession is letting up. “What looked like a flicker of light at the end of the tunnel is now starting to look like a beacon,” said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus Research. (Associated Press)

Recession Briefing: 06.01.09

What you need to know today to survive and thrive in the recession.

General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection today as part of the Obama administration’s plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size. (Associated Press)

Paul Krugman is blaming the recession on the economic policies begun in the early 1980s during the Reagan Administration. (New York Times)

Hugo Lindgren talks to a wide variety of economic forecasters to try and determine whether the “downturnaround: is real. They didn’t agree on much.(New York Magazine)