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Manhattan skyline view from the roof deck of a Park Slope building ." /> Manhattan skyline view from the roof deck of a Park Slope building . View Full Caption Corcoran Group MANHATTAN— Yes, New York City is way less affordable now than seven years ago. Case in point: An apartment going for $2,000 a month for rent in 2010 would now get $2,657 a month, a report published Wednesday from real estate search engine StreetEasy reveals. Compounding the city’s affordability crisis: rents in the city rose twice as fast as wages, according to the analysis, which compared the StreetEasy Rent Index with wage data from the city’s Department of Labor. While median rents increased 3 .9 percent a year since 2010, wages increased by 1.8 percent over the same period. Those working in the city’s lowest wage jobs were hit hardest. Low- wage earners — those in the bottom 20 percent of the workforce, which represent a little more than 800,000 of the roughly 4.1 million employed New Yorkers ...

See more of the story Drones will take to the skies in some Minneapolis neighborhoods this fall to hunt for problems hidden in the city’s sewers. The city is experimenting with the technology as part of its annual smoke testing of the sewers, which helps crews spot trouble spots underground . It will be a first for the city’s public works department , though engineers across the country are discovering public uses for drones — including inspecting bridges and ditches in Minnesota. This year’s smoke testing will focus largely on areas in Northeast and Southeast clustered around the central Minneapolis riverfront . Residents there recently received letters warning they may see a drone flying above the street taking pictures . “We’re not flying the drones over anyone’s homes or over any private property,” said Katrina Kessler, the city’s director of surface water and sewers. Smoke testing helps determine if connections remain between the city’s sanitary and stormwater sewer systems , w...

First Coast News Video : Karen Brune Mathis First Business Report Almost 700 apartments are on track for development in the Deerwood Park area at Butler and Southside boulevard s. Early next year, The Vestcor Companies of Jacksonville plans to break ground on the $25 million, 400-unit Tivoli at Deerwood Apartments, and Wood Partners of Atlanta intends to start construction on the $20.5 million, 282-unit Woods at Deerwood Park. Both developers say the spot is a hot one for job growth, making the Butler and Southside boulevard location a prime candidate for luxury apartments. "It's right near all your employment," said Vestcor President Mark Ferrell , noting the Deerwood Park and Butler Boulevard office developments , the nearby University of North Florida and its First Coast Technology Park and the potential regional shopping villages under design for the area. The Tivoli at Deerwood Apartments now is under Jacksonville Planning and Development Department review . P...

Damonte Ranch area is a sign of the city's need for housing in Reno, Nev. The recent influx of new workers combined with near-zero residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-and-demand scenario that saw the cost of housing skyrocket in the Biggest Little City. (Andy Barron/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP) Photo: Andy Barron, AP / The Reno Gazette-Journal" class="landscape" /> residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-and-demand scenario that saw the cost of housing skyrocket in the Biggest Little City. (Andy Barron/The Reno Gazette-Journal via AP) Photo: Andy Barron, AP / The Reno Gazette-Journal" class="landscape" src="src" /> Damonte Ranch area is a sign of the city's need for housing in Reno, Nev. The recent influx of new workers combined with near-zero residential development during the recession gave birth to a classic supply-and-demand scenario that ...

The search began before dawn; the train had just crossed the border of Tajikistan into Uzbekistan. We were only three hours into the four- day train ride between Dushanbe, Tajikistan’s capital, and Moscow. An Uzbek border guard , clad in brown fatigues , boarded the train — a Soviet-replica, green, with a silver roof — and began yelling. He moved through the car, searching passenger after passenger, ripping apart belongings, interrogating everyone about terrorism and narcotics, and scanning flip phones and cheap Nokias for “sex photos” (pornography is banned in Uzbekistan). The passengers endured this, unfazed. Almost all of them were migrants traveling to Russia for work. They’d seen this routine before. It was March. Across Tajikistan, thousands of people — mostly young men — were departing for or preparing to leave for Russia. The long Russian winter was nearing its end; construction projects in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg were slowly coming back to life. Tajikistan, t...