October 16, 1882 – The Nickel Plate Railroad opens for business. The New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (reporting mark NKP) was a railroad that operated in the mid-central United States from 1881 to 1964. Commonly referred to as the "Nickel Plate Road" By 1878, William Vanderbilt, the richest man in America, had a monopoly on rail traffic between Buffalo, New York; Cleveland, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; and Chicago, because he owned the only railroad linking those cities - the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway. Meanwhile Financier Jay Gould had a Wabash mainline that ran from St. Louis, Missouri, to Toledo, Ohio, where it was forced to deliver its railroad traffic to William H. Vanderbilt's Lake Shore Railroad for delivery to the eastern United States. A deal was in the air. The railroad was estimated to require 90,000 long tons (80,000 metric tons) of steel rails, each weighing 60 pounds per linear yard and 1.5 million oak crossties. Additionally, the railroad required 49 major bridges. It was characterized by long sections of straight track, mild grades, and impressive bridges. The Nickel Plate ran its first trains over the entire system on October 16, 1882. Didja know? During a newspaper war to attract the NYC&St.L, the Norwalk, Ohio, Chronicle Newspaper referred to it as a "... double-track, nickel-plated railroad." The railroad adopted the nickname and it became better known as the Nickel Plate Road.
20-25 Vision- How whipsaw demographics might reshape the housing climate in Ohio
Declining birthrates solve the housing problem. More empty homes: Japan's housing glut to hit 10m in 2023
Peak People has profound implications...but maybe not til 2080.
The end of foreign Immigration (as we know it).
Domestic climate refugees-heat, fire, air and water will push and pull internal movement.
Longevity may force rewriting housing economics (mortgage, construction, ???)
How will politics and policy be shaped by biology, climate change and psychology?
20-25 vision. Four thoughts on inequality
September 11, 2025. Ohio Capital Journal. Ohio economic policies the last 25 years have favored the top at the expense of workers, report says "Ohio’s workers have seen a lot of changes in the last 25 years, according to a recent report by a state policy think tank, but those changes haven’t always been good for them. Policies have favored “loopholes for the wealthiest and corporations, instead of policies that build the economy from the middle-out and bottom-up,” Policy Matters Ohio Researcher Heather Smith wrote in this year’s analysis. In Policy Matters Ohio’s latest State of Working Ohio report, researchers review the last quarter-century in honor of the think tank’s founding. The first State of Working Ohio report in 1999 showed a falling median wage, and workers who were producing more but being paid less than their parents in the previous 20 years. Since 1999, the economy for workers in Ohio has shown disparities for men and women, people of color, and people of different education levels."
Why won't Democrats challenge inequality? They are part of the problem. "The entrenched powerful, who pretty much do as they please with impunity, cannot allow voters to interfere with a good thing, so they erect gratuitous roadblocks to suppress voting in the state. Ohio Republican legislators, occasionally joined by equally self-serving Democrats, have been on a tear to impose new impediments to voting since the GOP decided to exploit Donald Trump’s Big Lie — about massive voting fraud rigging the 2020 election — to enact all manner of obstructive voting laws under the guise of “election integrity.” Ohio lawmakers keep attacking the power of voters not to protect elections but to protect themselves
3. will economic inequality end the American Dream? The State of the American Middle Class Who is in it and key trends from 1970 to 2023 h/t: Olivera Perkins
"....for a better future to begin, the oligarchy needs to be met with a confrontational politics of a scale and persistence unknown to our political present. But the future is one thing the oligarchy does not yet own." Trevor Jackson (Paywalled)
20-25 vision--Health and safety organizing
Why are health and safety the best messages for tenant organizers? That's what home is all about! Don't think of health and safety as issues...think of them as themes (or memes if you are younger) think of them as the metadata that underlie every campaign.
Longevity: September 9, 2025. NextCity. America’s Longevity Boom Depends on Healthy Homes. "Op-ed: Our cultural fixation on longevity often centers on diets, gyms and labs. But safe, affordable, healthy housing may be the most powerful — and overlooked — driver of healthspan."
Sept. 11, 2025. NYT Gift article. Would You Trade Your Safety for Homeownership? "But even if a fifth of buyers said they were willing to overlook it, safety still topped the list of new home must-haves, the survey found, with 78 percent of respondents saying it was nonnegotiable, and 74 percent saying that buying in a low-crime area was nonnegotiable. Living in an area with low risk for natural disaster was the third most popular must-have, though about a third of respondents said they were willing to compromise on that, too. Coming in fourth, with 67 percent of respondents unwilling to sacrifice it: access to grocery stores." The headline is a little misleading. To be clear--80% of homeseekers require "safety".
Fear and the House-as-Haven in the Lower Class. Lee Rainwater's classic 1966 study of renters and safety.
20-25 vision--New Housing Options, the new American Dream
September 18, 2025. Next City. When Neighbors Take Ownership of Their Housing Future "In Washington, D.C., the Douglass Community Land Trust is creating permanent affordability and 'pay-it-forward' homeownership to protect longtime residents east of the Anacostia.