Last summer, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, then Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, co-bylined an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal promising to “protect America’s suburbs," describing how they reversed policies that would allow for the creation of denser living structures in areas zoned only for single-family homes.

When a survey by the Pew Research Center showed that the proportion of Americans aged 18 to 29 living with their parents increased during the pandemic, you may have seen some dramatic headlines announcing that this number is higher than at any time. another time since the Great Depression. But the real story, from my point of view, is less alarming and even more interesting.

The idea that materialistic values can obstruct our path to happiness dates back hundreds of years. The Buddha encouraged a balance between asceticism and pleasure; early Christian monasticism preached spiritual transformation through simple living; philosopher Lao Tzu warned that if you chase after money, “your heart will never unclench.”

The most famous dysfunctional family of 1990s television enjoyed, by today’s standards, an almost dreamily secure existence.

One of the things this pandemic has taken from us is the summer blockbuster. The summer months came and went, and throughout that time movie-goers largely stayed home. For people like director Christopher Nolan, whose movie Tenet released in theaters after a delayed launch and performed below expectations, this is a sign of the end of cinema. Outside of the strict confines of Hollywood, though, small theaters and distributors are seeing new ways to show movies and create community. Along the way, they're redefining what it means to be movie theaters.

While the tiny-house movement is built on living freely, owners told Insider it's actually difficult to find a place to park legally.

Millions of households are behind on their rent and face a potential "fiscal cliff" early next year.

The idea that democracy and billionaires are incompatible might seem radical to conservatives. But to America’s founders, it seemed like common sense. In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville produced one of the earliest accounts of the American dream. In his famous study of the Jacksonian U.S., the Frenchman wrote that Americans possessed “the charm of anticipated success” — a ubiquitous optimism that he attributed to our country’s democratic character, and to the “general equality of condition” that prevailed among its “people.”

Here’s a chicken-or-egg problem: Research shows married people enjoy better health. But why? Is it because marriage is good for your health and encourages healthier behavior, or because healthier individuals are more likely to get married?

A report on financial security shows a widening divide between the haves and have-nots amid the coronavirus outbreak and economic crisis.

They are between 40 and 50 years old, live immersed in chronic hopelessness, most are still single and childless and have thrown in the towel in the workplace.

The decline of the American middle class began around the mid- to late-1980s, at the same time as the negative long-run changes in modern American life — increased income and wealth inequality, lower social mobility — began to intensify. The figure below shows the share of the middle four deciles in total market income. (Market income includes all labor and property incomes, plus income from own businesses.)

Even before COVID-19 and resulting shutdowns created gridlock for some global supply chains, the assortment at many neighborhood supermarkets was dwindling. The cause was not a lack of supply, though, but rather a lack of demand created by a widening income gap in the US, the researchers report.

In the US, the average life expectancy is 78 years. But there are a few places in the world—specifically Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; and Icaria, Greece—where living to be over 100 isn’t uncommon at all. In these regions, known as Blue Zones, the life expectancy isn’t just higher; centenarians are generally also healthy, their minds and bodies still working well.

In recent years prominent pundits including Steven Pinker, Jordan Peterson and Bill Gates have invoked the progress in global life expectancies to defend capitalism against a growing tide of critics. Certainly there’s a lot to celebrate on this front. After all, average human life expectancy has improved a great deal.

We face a growing array of problems that involve technology directly or indirectly. To name just a few: nuclear weapons, climate change induced by fossil fuels, the possibility that AI will get out of control, the effect of automation on employment, using bots and targeted fake news to influence elections, deepfake software, data and privacy concerns in general and, in particular, the capacity of facial-recognition software to create a surveillance state (like China).

Many residents of Martin county, Kentucky, won’t drink their tap water, a legacy of years of mismanagement

Italian architect Stefano Boeri has launched a global campaign to promote urban forestry. Boeri wants to see more forests and trees in cities, to reduce pollution and reverse climate change. The campaign invites all those with influence on the matter, including architects, researchers, real estate developers and NGOs to consider the multiple advantages of greener cityscapes.

Median US household income was $68,700 in 2019, the highest since 1967, the first year records were kept, according to inflation-adjusted data released by the Census Bureau on Tuesday.

Thinking of sending your "thoughts and prayers" to those affected by tragedy or a natural disaster? Well, not everyone wants them. A new study shows that while Christians placed a positive value on receiving thoughts and prayers from strangers, nonreligous people did not.