Author Archives: Jon Lowder

Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of January 3, 2026

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Housing affordability, availability top the news in 2025 (NC Newsline)

Rent Concessions Flash Warning Sign as Multifamily Supply Wave Hits Margins (GlobeSt.com)

The Reason Airplane Windows Have Tiny Holes in Them (DailyPassport)

Where Have You Gone, Billie Jean King? (JoePosnanski)

NC lawmakers are looking at property tax law. What that means for you (News & Observer)

NC teachers to run in GOP primary for state legislature. Will it have an impact? (News & Observer)

A growing American crisis is affecting more than 1 million students (USA Today)

Bourbon Waves a White Flag (The Resistance)

Quotes

“And there was almost no human being so unlike other human beings that it did not know what a kiss was.” – Patricia Lockwood, No One Is Talking About This

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of December 27, 2025

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Housing affordability, availability top the news in 2025 (NC Newsline)

Unreliable Jobs Data Undermines Fed’s Grip on the Economy (GlobeSt.)

20 NC legislators are running unopposed, and they’re all Democrats (WFDD)

Charlotte apartment development slows dramatically while market absorbs 11,500 units (Charlotte Business Journal)

Inside the North Carolina GOP’s decade-long push to seize power from state’s Democratic governors (Salon)

How many is 96,000? Key housing number cited by Moore is hard to explain (Newsfromthestates.com)

Rising seas are destroying North Carolina homes. This 9th grader designed a solution (FastCompany)

Trump Says ‘Housing First’ Failed the Homeless. Here’s What the Evidence Says. (New York Times)

4 compelling races to watch in North Carolina’s state legislative primaries | Opinion (News & Observer)

The Slow Death of Epic Systems (Julio La Torre)

No, North Carolina didn’t just ban cellphone use in cars, despite AI aggregators saying it did (PolitiFact)

Shifting water infrastructure decisions to local governments could accelerate housing, advocates say (Smartcitiesdive)

This town was founded for one reason only: To shoot dogs (NC Rabbit Hole)

Quotes

“For a little dog, he has a big butthole.” – My Better 3/4

“For me, ice cream is like pizza…it is never wrong or bad, just degrees of great.” – Jay Bilas

Some people die at 25 and aren’t buried until 75.” – Ben Franklin

“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.” – Ernest Hemingway

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of December 20, 2025

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The Specific Thing That Left-Wing Populists Don’t Get (The Atlantic)

Housing markets where power is shifting the most toward buyers heading into 2026 (Fast Company)

What is Heather Cox Richardsonism? (Silver Bulletin)

The Checks That Saved 75 Christmases (Now I Know)

See What Others Missed: The ProfG Storytelling Playbook (Mia Silverio)

Quotes

“To do populism effectively, politicians must not only focus on problems that the public cares about; by and large, they must also accept the public’s framing of those problems. This creates a dilemma for the left, because that framing, in a complex modern society, will usually be incorrect. As a result, left-wing politicians struggle to find issues on which they can be authentically populist. Many of the problems that they hope to resolve, such as climate change, housing scarcity, and surging health-care costs, are complicated. This means that the policies needed to fix them are also complicated, and cannot be explained without ascending to the realm of abstraction. Slogans that resonate with the public seldom translate literally into successful policy.” – Joseph Heath, The Atlantic

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of December 13, 2025

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Understanding Carriage (Seth Godin)

FTC Sends Warning Letters to 13 Property Management Software Providers Nationwide (FTC)

In L.A., $750 a Month to Live in a Backyard Storage Unit (New York Times)

CoStar: multifamily property prices higher in October (YieldPro)

Kids Rarely Read Whole Books Anymore. Even in English Class. (New York Times)

Buc-ee’s, Koury projects in Mebane brought into dispute between Alamance County neighbors (Triad Business Journal)

HHHunt to start work on $43M luxury apartments near Greensboro Topgolf (Triad Business Journal)

NC’s ‘build-to-rent’ housing boom expands to Wendell. What’s coming next? (News & Observer)

We Stopped Saving for a House (Family Money)

Quotes

I’ve become invisible at 67.
Waitstaff look through me. Colleagues talk over me. Shop assistants forget I exist.
At first it stung. Then I discovered its strange power. I notice everything. I speak rarely. When I finally do, the surprise ensures everyone listens.
Aging isn’t decline. It’s stealth mode.The Old Grey Thinker

“If you have two guys on a stage and one guy says, ‘I have a solution to the Middle East problem,’ and the other guy falls in the orchestra pit, who do you think is going to be on the evening news?” – Roger Ailes quoted in Letters from an American

“Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity. It is an act of justice.” Nelson Mandela

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of December 6, 2025

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Fifty Years After History’s Most Brutal Boxing Match (The Atlantic)

How Paul Newby Made North Carolina a Blueprint for Conservative Courts (ProPublica)

Taking Senior Housing to a New Level (Triangle Business Journal)

I Protest His Protest Song, or Why Jesse Welles Is Bad—And Bad for Us (Out + Back)

How Originalism Killed the Constitution (The Atlantic)

Rising Age of First-Time Homebuyers Drives Multifamily Demand (GlobeSt.)

Quotes

“Power usually whispers because it can..” – Alexis Coe, Study Marry Kill

“If you want to change what people believe, change how they act.”Seth Godin

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of November 22, 2025

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Greensboro set to consider restricting housing commission powers (WFDD)

Multifamily construction spending shows positive signs in August (YieldPro)

Immigration arrests empty shops and stall construction (The Charlotte Ledger)

DOJ reaches settlement with major apartment landlords over algorithmic pricing (WCSC)

Apartments ignite density debate in small North Carolina town (Triangle Business Journal)

How North Carolina won 3,000 jobs in 48 hours (Triad Business Journal)

4 factors impacting the affordable housing outlook (Multifamily Dive)

Audit says NC agency mismanagement left families waiting years after hurricanes (News & Observer)

Historic Mill’s New Life as Affordable Housing Boosts Downtown Rebirth (HUD Policy Development & Research)

America’s Housing Crisis, in One Chart (New York Times)

Quotes

“Lower-income households are under stress, there’s no question about that,” Adler said. “Lower-income Americans are definitely feeling the pinch in rent, and it is showing up in collections issues in many places.” – Jeff Adler, VP of Yardi Matrix, Multifamily Dive

“One reason we don’t build enough affordable housing is we’ve made affordable housing unaffordable to build.” – Ezra Klein, New York Times

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of November 15, 2025

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Winston-Salem nonprofit opens $17 million housing complex with goal of improving neighborhood (Triad Business Journal)

Long-running ‘Carolina Business Review’ to go off the air on PBS at the end of December; will figure out new direction (The Charlotte Ledger)

Marshall Aerospace delays opening, hiring ramp-up at PTI amid contract timing shifts (Triad Business Journal)

Toyota shows off $14 billion battery plant in Randolph County, pledges more to come (Triad Business Journal)

Rents continue to slip in October (Multifamily Dive)

Pour one out for Charlotte Magazine (The North Carolina Rabbit Hole)

Quotes

“The treasury is not getting rid of pennies—they’re not making more, but you can spend the ones you’ve got. There are 300 billion in circulation, although “in circulation” is not quite the right phrase, because roughly 299 billion are stashed away in old coffee cans or ashtrays.” – Tommy Tomlinson, The Writing Shed

“It allows me to trick myself and escape, for a moment, back to a time when things were no less complicated or hard but sure felt like they were.” – Jeremy Markovich, The North Carolina Rabbit Hole

“When I lost him, someone told me that Hammy had left a part of himself with me, and taken a piece of me with him, and it sure feels that way. I think about that often.” – Melanie D.G. Kaplan in an interview with Tommy Tomlinson, The Writing Shed

“Have kids. It’s the best thing you’ll ever do to ruin your life.” – Scott Galloway, Overtime with Bill Maher

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Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of November 8, 2025

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CRE Leaders Warn of Stalled Deals, Unpaid Rents as Shutdown Drags On (GlobeSt.)

Minor Moves, Big Questions: Reading Class C Delinquency Signals (GlobeSt.)

Multifamily Relief, Office Momentum Mark CRE Reset (GlobeSt.)

Charlotte City Council: Incumbents win, Democrats flip south Charlotte seat to expand dominance to 10-1 over Republicans (Charlotte Ledger)

‘Serious heartburn’: Companies and workers are encountering sharply higher health insurance costs for 2026 (Charlotte Ledger)

3 NC cities make top ten rank for converting hotels to apartments, according to latest study (CBS17.com)

In praise of the golf buddy (Fried Egg Golf)

The Missing Kayaker (The Atlantic)

The Affordability Curse (The Atlantic)

Quotes

“Developers and investors rely on federal agencies to process permits, approve loans and execute contracts—all functions that have ground to a halt.” – Erik Sherman, GlobeSt.com

“Character reminds us that our worth is revealed through contribution. That what is worth pursuing is what will live beyond our actions because it is embedded in the fiber of time.
We don’t lose our greatness by serving. We find it there.”
– Suzanne Hopson in a LinkedIn post.

“Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn’t.” – Mark Twain

“Taxes are what we pay for a civilized society.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

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A North Carolina woman sold her dream home, but found her way back years later (Marketplace)

Read/Listen/Watch List for Week of November 1, 2025

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Triad housing market defies national slowdown as Guilford sees while Yadkin County ZIP is hottest area (Triad Business Journal)

State Housing Policy is Having a Moment (The New Urban Order)

The joy of staying up way too late (The Writing Shed)

Homebuyers are backing out of deals at record rates. Here’s why and what it means for the housing market. (Triad Business Journal)

Greensboro, Winston-Salem see drop in renter mobility as housing market stabilizes (Triad Business Journal)

The Right Tool (Our State Magazine)

The Delicious Legacy of Chapel Hill’s Favorite BLT (Garden & Gun)

Quotes

“A life is nothing but a sum of its yesterdays.” David Joy, When These Mountains Burn

“What’s left, in this frictionless home-delivered society, that is still worth waiting in line for?” Tommy Tomlinson, The Last call at the Bar-B-Q King, The Writing Shed

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