[image: image.png] opening thoughts:
one of the nation’s underrated pieces of infrastructure: The national spare-bedroom supply.
According to a Census analysis from last year by Apartment List, there are an astonishing 137 million spare bedrooms <www.apartmentlist.com/research/the-us-has-more-spare-bedrooms-than-ever-before?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in the United States. What explains it? Consider: In 1970, the share of U.S. households with three or more people and the share of U.S. households with three or more bedrooms was about the same. Now, nearly two-thirds of houses have three or more bedrooms, but just 38 percent of households have three or more people.In part, this is the result of two long-standing trends: Houses keep getting bigger, while households keep getting smaller. …But The bigger homes don’t belong to the bigger families. Nearly 20 percent of all owner-occupied homes consist of a senior person or senior couple with two or more spare bedrooms (this might be where your Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday will take place, in the style of Jonathan Franzen’s *The Corrections*). Younger married couples without kids also have loads of spare bedrooms—a trend bolstered by the remote-work effect.
planner Bill Fulton, who highlighted this data in his newsletter this week <futureofwhere.substack.com/p/a-shortage-of-housing-and-a-glut>, introduced an even more amazing statistic: According to research by the Minneapolis Fed, the majority of bedrooms in this country are owned by people between 50 and 70 years old <www.minneapolisfed.org/research/institute-working-papers/property-taxes-and-housing-allocation-under-financial-constraints?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> .
Unlike the nation’s millions of vacant houses <www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/vacant-seasonal-housing.html>, which tend to be in places people do not want to live, these spare bedrooms are often in places people would very much like to live. Once, they might have been rented out to boarders, but that model has unfortunately fallen out of fashion in spite of platforms like AirbnbHow do you get boomers to give up those extra bedrooms for good, and achieve a bedroom redistribution that lines up with people’s needs?
The obstacles abound. As if locked-in mortgage rates and property tax abatements weren’t enough to keep aging households in place, the prevalence of single-family zoning ensures that neighborhoods have no building stock besides large stand-alone houses. Give the owners of those homes a place to downsize, and you might put some of those 137 million spare bedrooms into everyday use. slate.com/business/2024/11/housing-market-affordability-real-estate-shortage-solution-vacant-bedrooms.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIxkPlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHahmLokhsnn1cIo24_VUDU5BqUqPsErTwH0rctftjRE2_G7L1ePw_… part one:
“How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives <projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/> ”. projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/
b\opening thoughts:
one of the nation’s underrated pieces of infrastructure: The national spare-bedroom supply.
According to a Census analysis from last year by Apartment List, there are an astonishing 137 million spare bedrooms <www.apartmentlist.com/research/the-us-has-more-spare-bedrooms-than-ever-before?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in the United States. What explains it? Consider: In 1970, the share of U.S. households with three or more people and the share of U.S. households with three or more bedrooms was about the same. Now, nearly two-thirds of houses have three or more bedrooms, but just 38 percent of households have three or more people.In part, this is the result of two long-standing trends: Houses keep getting bigger, while households keep getting smaller. …But The bigger homes don’t belong to the bigger families. Nearly 20 percent of all owner-occupied homes consist of a senior person or senior couple with two or more spare bedrooms (this might be where your Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday will take place, in the style of Jonathan Franzen’s *The Corrections*). Younger married couples without kids also have loads of spare bedrooms—a trend bolstered by the remote-work effect.
planner Bill Fulton, who highlighted this data in his newsletter this week <futureofwhere.substack.com/p/a-shortage-of-housing-and-a-glut>, introduced an even more amazing statistic: According to research by the Minneapolis Fed, the majority of bedrooms in this country are owned by people between 50 and 70 years old <www.minneapolisfed.org/research/institute-working-papers/property-taxes-and-housing-allocation-under-financial-constraints?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> .
Unlike the nation’s millions of vacant houses <www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/vacant-seasonal-housing.html>, which tend to be in places people do not want to live, these spare bedrooms are often in places people would very much like to live. Once, they might have been rented out to boarders, but that model has unfortunately fallen out of fashion in spite of platforms like AirbnbHow do you get boomers to give up those extra bedrooms for good, and achieve a bedroom redistribution that lines up with people’s needs?
The obstacles abound. As if locked-in mortgage rates and property tax abatements weren’t enough to keep aging households in place, the prevalence of single-family zoning ensures that neighborhoods have no building stock besides large stand-alone houses. Give the owners of those homes a place to downsize, and you might put some of those 137 million spare bedrooms into everyday use. slate.com/business/2024/11/housing-market-affordability-real-estate-shortage-solution-vacant-bedrooms.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIxkPlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHahmLokhsnn1cIo24_VUDU5BqUqPsErTwH0rctftjRE2_G7L1ePw_… part one: propublica investigative reporter Corey Johnson
“How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives <projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/> ”. projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/ part two: It’s Clearer Than Ever What Jeff Bezos Wants With the Washington Post. slate.com/business/2025/03/donald-trump-news-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-washington-post.html *Justin Peters* is a Slate correspondent and the author of *The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet* . — Listen online at www.wnhnfm.org/live. Listen anytime to the podcast at www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238 <www.podomatic.com/podcasts/staff74238> podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/attitude-with-arnie-arnesen/id1634055179 tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie- <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> Arnesen-p1711842/ <tunein.com/podcasts/News–Politics-Podcasts/Attitude-with-Arnie-Arnesen-p1711842/> the Attitude with Arnie Arnesen, spare bedrooms, housing, Corey Johnson, Propublica, guns, Cambridge Analytica,elections, Justin Peters, Slate, Jeff Bezos, Washington Post *KEEPING THE POT STIRRED SO SCUM DOESN’T RISE TO THE TOP* – Anonymous
*D. ARNIE ARNESEN* 15 Rumford Street Concord NH 03301 nharnie@gmail.com (C) 603-321-7654
*Host of “The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen”* *Award Winning Public Affairs Show (NHAB 2018)* *airs noon to 1pm and 7pm EST M-F at 94.7FM (concord nh)* Home Station – wnhnfm.org Part of the Pacifica Network go to wnhnfm.org for streaming live Podcasts available here: www.wnhnfm.org/category/attitude-3/
*Arnie on the Air* Boston, MA-WGBH Under the Radar/Sunday Nights Keene, NH-WKBK Friday Morning with Dan Mitchell
one of the nation’s underrated pieces of infrastructure: The national spare-bedroom supply.
According to a Census analysis from last year by Apartment List, there are an astonishing 137 million spare bedrooms <www.apartmentlist.com/research/the-us-has-more-spare-bedrooms-than-ever-before?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in the United States. What explains it? Consider: In 1970, the share of U.S. households with three or more people and the share of U.S. households with three or more bedrooms was about the same. Now, nearly two-thirds of houses have three or more bedrooms, but just 38 percent of households have three or more people.In part, this is the result of two long-standing trends: Houses keep getting bigger, while households keep getting smaller. …But The bigger homes don’t belong to the bigger families. Nearly 20 percent of all owner-occupied homes consist of a senior person or senior couple with two or more spare bedrooms (this might be where your Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday will take place, in the style of Jonathan Franzen’s *The Corrections*). Younger married couples without kids also have loads of spare bedrooms—a trend bolstered by the remote-work effect.
planner Bill Fulton, who highlighted this data in his newsletter this week <futureofwhere.substack.com/p/a-shortage-of-housing-and-a-glut>, introduced an even more amazing statistic: According to research by the Minneapolis Fed, the majority of bedrooms in this country are owned by people between 50 and 70 years old <www.minneapolisfed.org/research/institute-working-papers/property-taxes-and-housing-allocation-under-financial-constraints?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> .
Unlike the nation’s millions of vacant houses <www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/vacant-seasonal-housing.html>, which tend to be in places people do not want to live, these spare bedrooms are often in places people would very much like to live. Once, they might have been rented out to boarders, but that model has unfortunately fallen out of fashion in spite of platforms like AirbnbHow do you get boomers to give up those extra bedrooms for good, and achieve a bedroom redistribution that lines up with people’s needs?
The obstacles abound. As if locked-in mortgage rates and property tax abatements weren’t enough to keep aging households in place, the prevalence of single-family zoning ensures that neighborhoods have no building stock besides large stand-alone houses. Give the owners of those homes a place to downsize, and you might put some of those 137 million spare bedrooms into everyday use. slate.com/business/2024/11/housing-market-affordability-real-estate-shortage-solution-vacant-bedrooms.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIxkPlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHahmLokhsnn1cIo24_VUDU5BqUqPsErTwH0rctftjRE2_G7L1ePw_… part one:
“How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives <projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/> ”. projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/
b\opening thoughts:
one of the nation’s underrated pieces of infrastructure: The national spare-bedroom supply.
According to a Census analysis from last year by Apartment List, there are an astonishing 137 million spare bedrooms <www.apartmentlist.com/research/the-us-has-more-spare-bedrooms-than-ever-before?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> in the United States. What explains it? Consider: In 1970, the share of U.S. households with three or more people and the share of U.S. households with three or more bedrooms was about the same. Now, nearly two-thirds of houses have three or more bedrooms, but just 38 percent of households have three or more people.In part, this is the result of two long-standing trends: Houses keep getting bigger, while households keep getting smaller. …But The bigger homes don’t belong to the bigger families. Nearly 20 percent of all owner-occupied homes consist of a senior person or senior couple with two or more spare bedrooms (this might be where your Thanksgiving or Christmas holiday will take place, in the style of Jonathan Franzen’s *The Corrections*). Younger married couples without kids also have loads of spare bedrooms—a trend bolstered by the remote-work effect.
planner Bill Fulton, who highlighted this data in his newsletter this week <futureofwhere.substack.com/p/a-shortage-of-housing-and-a-glut>, introduced an even more amazing statistic: According to research by the Minneapolis Fed, the majority of bedrooms in this country are owned by people between 50 and 70 years old <www.minneapolisfed.org/research/institute-working-papers/property-taxes-and-housing-allocation-under-financial-constraints?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email> .
Unlike the nation’s millions of vacant houses <www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/05/vacant-seasonal-housing.html>, which tend to be in places people do not want to live, these spare bedrooms are often in places people would very much like to live. Once, they might have been rented out to boarders, but that model has unfortunately fallen out of fashion in spite of platforms like AirbnbHow do you get boomers to give up those extra bedrooms for good, and achieve a bedroom redistribution that lines up with people’s needs?
The obstacles abound. As if locked-in mortgage rates and property tax abatements weren’t enough to keep aging households in place, the prevalence of single-family zoning ensures that neighborhoods have no building stock besides large stand-alone houses. Give the owners of those homes a place to downsize, and you might put some of those 137 million spare bedrooms into everyday use. slate.com/business/2024/11/housing-market-affordability-real-estate-shortage-solution-vacant-bedrooms.html?fbclid=IwY2xjawIxkPlleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHahmLokhsnn1cIo24_VUDU5BqUqPsErTwH0rctftjRE2_G7L1ePw_… part one: propublica investigative reporter Corey Johnson
“How Cambridge Analytica Used Intimate Data to Exploit Gun Owners’ Private Lives <projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/> ”. projects.propublica.org/gun-owners-cambridge-analytica-data-psychological-profiles-privacy/ part two: It’s Clearer Than Ever What Jeff Bezos Wants With the Washington Post. slate.com/business/2025/03/donald-trump-news-elon-musk-jeff-bezos-washington-post.html *Justin Peters* is a Slate correspondent and the author of *The Idealist: Aaron Swartz and the Rise of Free Culture on the Internet*
*D. ARNIE ARNESEN* 15 Rumford Street Concord NH 03301 nharnie@gmail.com (C) 603-321-7654
*Host of “The Attitude with Arnie Arnesen”* *Award Winning Public Affairs Show (NHAB 2018)* *airs noon to 1pm and 7pm EST M-F at 94.7FM (concord nh)* Home Station – wnhnfm.org Part of the Pacifica Network go to wnhnfm.org for streaming live Podcasts available here: www.wnhnfm.org/category/attitude-3/
*Arnie on the Air* Boston, MA-WGBH Under the Radar/Sunday Nights Keene, NH-WKBK Friday Morning with Dan Mitchell
