arden

Woman charged with murder of church warden in Co-op attack

Zara Anne Radcliffe, 29, will appear in court accused of murdering 88-year-old John Rees and the attempted murder of three others.




arden

Travel, garden centres and schools – how England’s lockdown could be eased

People in England are eagerly awaiting Boris Johnson’s announcement on Sunday around what changes might be made to the lockdown.




arden

Supplies to start your own indoor, hydroponic garden

Hydroponic systems for edible indoor gardens.




arden

Soundgarden members accuse Chris Cornell’s widow of withholding funds from 2019 benefit concert


The Seattle rock icons filed a countersuit Wednesday accusing Vicky Cornell of withholding money raised through a star-studded benefit concert held last year in the late singer’s honour, instead using it for personal purposes — an accusation Cornell denies.




arden

Vinay Menon: How can I ever mow the lawn after Queen’s Brian May badly injured his buttocks while gardening?


The COVID-19 pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to reprioritize, writes Vinay Menon. And if one of my childhood heroes is now coping with mangled butt cheeks from a yard mishap, isn’t that a divine sign to shun the Greenworks tools in my shed until further notice?




arden

Charley Webb has the most indulgent picnic for her children in their back garden - see photo

Actress Charley Webb revealed how she and her sons had spent the bank holiday on Friday,...




arden

Brian May says he 'won't be able to walk or sleep for a while' after gardening injury

Queen guitarist Brian May says he ended up in hospital and was left unable to walk after "ripping his glutes to shreds" while gardening.




arden

Queen's Brian May hospitalized for butt injury after 'over-enthusiastic gardening'

"I managed to rip my Gluteus Maximus to shreds," Queen guitarist Brian May shared on Instagram, along with a photo of himself sporting a mask in the hospital.




arden

Justice Department Requires ConAgra, Cargill, CHS, Horizon Milling to Divest Four Significant Flour Mills to Go Forward with Ardent Mills Joint Venture

The Department of Justice will require ConAgra Foods Inc., Cargill Inc., CHS Inc. and Horizon Milling LLC to divest four competitively significant flour mills in order to proceed with the formation of Ardent Mills, a flour milling joint venture.



  • OPA Press Releases

arden

The glass barrier to the upper middle class is hardening


America is becoming a more class-stratified society, contrary to the nation’s self-image as a socially dynamic meritocracy. In particular, the barriers are hardening between the upper middle class and the majority below them. As New York Times contributor Tom Edsall writes (“How the Other Fifth Lives"), “The self-segregation of a privileged fifth of the population is…creating a self-perpetuating class at the top, which is ever more difficult to break into.”

This separation of the upper middle class by income, wealth, occupation and neighborhood has created a social distance between those of us who have been prospering in recent decades, and those who are feeling left behind, angry and resentful, and more like to vote for To-Hell-With-Them-All populist politicians. As I told Charles Homans, also writing on class for the Times, “The upper middle class are surprised by the rise of Trump. The actual middle class is surprised we’re surprised.”

Edsall cited my earlier essay, “The Dangerous Separation of the American Upper Middle Class,” and quoted me as follows:

“The top fifth have been prospering while the majority lags behind. But the separation is not just economic. Gaps are growing on a whole range of dimensions, including family structure, education, lifestyle, and geography. Indeed, these dimensions of advantage appear to be clustering more tightly together, each thereby amplifying the effect of the other.”

Multidimensional affluence

Just as certain disadvantages can cluster together, creating multidimensional poverty, so advantages may cluster together, resulting in multidimensional advantage. Is there more clustering of advantages at the top of American society? Yes.

The top fifth of households by income obviously have more money than the 80 percent below them. What about other advantages? Let’s take just three: marriage, employment and education. (See Sean Reardon and Kendra Bischoff’s paper on the geographical segregation of affluence). You would expect people in top-quintile households to be more likely to have a graduate or professional degree; to have two earners in the family; and perhaps also to be married. You would be right.

The difference in the proportion of the top fifth with each of these other advantages compared to the bottom four-fifths is around 20 percentage points (we restrict our analysis to those aged 40-50). For example, in 1979 a forty-something year-old in the top income quintile was about 6 percentage points more likely to be married that one in the bottom 80 percent. Now the gap is 17 percentage points.

This is hardly surprising. More education and more earners in the home will increase the chances that you make it into the top quintile for your age cohort. But it is noteworthy that the extent to which these different dimensions of advantage overlap has been steadily increasing over time. Along with the increased association between top-quintile income and marriage, the differentials for graduate education and two-earner status have each increased by around 10 percentage points between 1979 and 2014.

How to inherit upper middle class status: Marriages and master’s degrees

Particularly striking is the increase in the “marriage gap” between the upper middle class and the rest. This is an important factor in the transmission of class status to the next generation, since married couples are more likely to stay together, and stable families predict better outcomes for children.

Similarly, the adults with high levels of education are likely to raise children who end up towards the top of the educational distribution. In fact, the intergenerational persistence of education is even greater than of income, as some of our earlier work shows (“The Inheritance of Education”). Almost half (46 percent) the children of parents in the top education quintile end up in the top education quintile themselves. Three in four (76 percent) stayed in one of the top two education quintiles.

Class gaps

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said: "Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” Ernest Hemingway’s later response was: “Yes, they have more money.” Today what separates the rich from the rest is not just money, but family life, education, zip code, and so on. This is a point made by a number of scholars, including recently both Robert Putnam in Our Kids and Charles Murray in Coming Apart. Our empirical analysis confirms that different kinds of advantage are increasingly overlapping with each other.

The framing of inequality in terms of social class used to feel distinctly un-American. No longer.


Editor’s note: This piece originally appeared in Real Clear Markets.

Authors

Image Source: © Brian Snyder / Reuters
     
 
 




arden

7 cocktail recipes inspired by Victory Gardens for the Fourth of July

So for this 4th of July, I want to honor the Victory Garden! Well, that and booze. Here are some fun and tasty cocktails, fresh from the garden.




arden

Lazivores unite: A manifesto for lazy gardening

It's time that the lazy gardeners among us rise up and take an explicit stand.




arden

How the Extinction Rebellion built the best Garden Bridge

No complex masterplans, they simply deleted the cars and invited the public to come and play.




arden

5 Public Gardens Damaged by Hurricane Sandy

These 5 gardens lost ancient and historic trees, and are in need of donations and volunteers to recover from Hurricane Sandy.




arden

Compact self-sufficient house has a terraced roof garden

This proposed home for a young family incorporates an efficient roof garden.




arden

Vintage photos: World War II ‘victory gardens’

Urban farming was way more than a fad in the 1940s.




arden

Organic gardening helps inmates kick drug addiction

Physically and mentally, growing plants without chemicals has a transformative effect.




arden

Condos in Ho Chi Minh City connected by roof gardens

Our favorite Vietnamese architect builds a giant wall of white planters... again.




arden

Drink Bottles Recycled Today in Times Square will be Converted into a School Garden (UPDATE)

Turn trash into a school garden in Harlem by recycling drink bottles in Times Square today.




arden

What is Biodynamic Gardening? (Video)

When I asked how vegetarians can avoid animal-based fertilizers, I noted that some people suggested exploring biodynamics instead of organics. In fact, nothing




arden

10 Sustainable Garden Products for a More Earth-Friendly Garden

Can your garden be kinder to the earth? From the materials your raised beds are built from to the fertilizers you use, there's room for improvement to achieve an earth-friendly garden




arden

Florida lifts ban on front-yard vegetable gardens

One couple's infamous battle over the right to grow vegetables has resulted in a new bill.




arden

How an Abandoned Market Garden Was Occupied (Video)

A village that was threatened by the expansion of Heathrow Airport in London became home to a squatted community garden. Here's how it happened.




arden

The Grove is a smart indoor garden that lets you grow lettuce year round

The fully automated aquaponics system grows lettuces, herbs and small fruits right in your kitchen.




arden

Movable Green Walls Create a Transformer Garden (Video)

We've heard of transformer apartments, but what about a transformer garden. These movable green walls create flexible outdoor spaces.




arden

Go ahead and AVA Byte of fresh produce from this countertop garden

This soil-free smart garden promises fresh greens and veggies that are grown as local as it gets.




arden

Your new indoor garden could be a tree -- a Living Farming Tree, that is

This aeroponic indoor gardening system from the Italian startup Hexagro is modular, scalable, and automated.




arden

Automated hydroponic gardens help you grow fresh produce indoor year-round

Grow some of your own greens, veggies, and herbs indoors with one of these automated hydroponic growing systems.




arden

Forest garden with 500 edible plants takes a few hours of work a month

Working with nature instead of against it, forest gardens promise abundance, as well as the kind of resilience a changing climate demands.




arden

Amid the Chaos of the SF Giants Parade, a Gardener Finds Peace (Photo)

The San Francisco Giants won the 2012 World Series, but this gardener doesn't seem to care.




arden

Edible Garden Sprouts from Plastic Waste in Ethiopia

Artist Kebreab Demeke's colorful, functional sculpture is among around a dozen projects examining the meaning of 'the good life' on display at an exhibition in Berlin.




arden

Pop-Up Gardens, Other 'Urban Interventions' to be Showcased at Venice Architecture Biennale

Pop-up gardens, urban farms, guerrilla bike lanes, examples of crowdsourced city planning, and other urban interventions will be the focus of the official U.S. Pavilion at the world's most prestigious architecture event.




arden

All Aboard the Helsinki Plant Tram, A Whimsical Urban Garden Made on the Move

Over the past three days, one of Helsinki's tram lines has been carrying some unusual cargo -- living plants donated by passengers for inclusion in a roller-coaster-themed urban garden.




arden

Why you shouldn't buy ladybugs for natural pest control in your garden

Got ladybugs? Encourage native ladybugs in your garden instead of buying wild-harvested ladybugs to manage pests.




arden

Is it really safe to eat food grown in urban gardens?

Between the industrial waste, rats, and lead dust floating around, I wasn't sure if I should start an urban garden. The question took me to an unexpected place.




arden

How to Use Plantings to Protect Your Garden From Thieves

It's not pretty, but a fact of life, gardens are rich pickings for thieves.




arden

Montreal supermarket opens huge organic rooftop garden

Talk about slashing food miles; 'fresh from the roof' is as local as it gets.




arden

DIY 2.0: Fountain app is like having a home & garden expert in your pocket

Quickly get connected via video chat to a home & garden expert to get help with your projects through Fountain. We've got beta invites for you to check it out yourself.




arden

A spiralling green roof tops off a kindergarden in Vietnam

Designboom shows another example of how green roofs are changing architecture.




arden

Urban-like post-disaster rural housing incorporates rooftop gardens

This reconstruction scheme in China encourages resilience and self-sufficiency.




arden

Most Popular Articles of June: City of Tulsa Destroys Woman's Edible Garden, Hilarious Prank on Shell, and More

How can a city destroy an edible garden on private property without legal permission? We also have the viral party-gone-wrong prank on Shell, the 12 most toxic fruits and vegetables, and more.




arden

How to build unheated greenhouses for winter harvests & year-round gardening (Video)

American organic farmer Eliot Coleman explains how his innovative winter gardening methods work, allowing growers to harvest veggies year-round.




arden

Garden Bridge fiasco wasted £53m

An object lesson in how not to do city-building.




arden

Tweetable, Interactive Algae Farm is Energy-Generating "Cyber-Garden" (Photos)

This fascinating installation where algae, bioluminescent bacteria, humans and smartphones interact may chart where a new generation of urban "cyber-gardeners" may go.




arden

How Refugees are Cultivating a Garden and Growing Community

A community garden in Atlanta proviudes refugees from around the Globe a space to grow food, share their culture and to build community as a result.




arden

Clever rainwater garden grows squash and corn in Arizona desert

When you've got a lot of driveway runoff, some careful landscaping can put it to good use.




arden

10 ways to make your garden more green

How green does your garden really grow? Top 10 tips for making sure your garden is chemical free and growing strong.




arden

Sowing the Seeds of Sustainability: Victory Gardens are Back!

During World War II ordinary citizens across the country did their part for the war effort by planting victory gardens to lessen the demand on the food system caused by the war. Some have suggested that sustainability is about returning to the more




arden

Arctic foxes are 'ecosystem engineers' who grow beautiful gardens

Researchers discover how Arctic foxes modify their dens to make the surrounding land more fertile.




arden

Tetris-Like Gardens Green Concrete Backyards in Buenos Aires

Concrete containers are placed in a metallic structure, forming a green wall to the eye and a walk in space to interact with the plants.