One of the reasons I visit AT on a daily basis and recommend it to all of my renting friends is that at one point AT was focused on making living in crappy apartments more pleasurable through clever ideas, good design, sharing with others and a bit of DIY. As of late AT has drifted from what I believe to be the original thrust: "changing the world, one apartment at a time".

I love ultra high-end design, DWR, Eames objects of desire and super-slick architecture as much as the next guy and if I wanted that I could get it EVERYWHERE else. I love(d) AT because it addressed the rest of us who work on a budget, RENT our places and generally exist in the liminal zone of compromise.

It's a bit disappointing to load the site and constantly see half-million dollar homes, $5000 couches, $600 a gallon paint and a slow but steady drift to a high-design blog.

i hate the fact that economic class structures exist in this country (and worldwide). i hate the fact that we can sit here talking about how a $700,000 home is "a bargain", and designer furniture is "an accesible splurge", while people all over the world starve. or to bring it on topic, while most americans rent nondescript white boxes and shop at walmart, of necessity.

i will disparage the well-off on all counts. most of all, though, for employing transparent and banal status-symbol decorating gimmicks. i mean, if you have the money and want to reward yourself for your hard work, fine. but if what that means is putting a huge flatscreen TV over the fireplace in the formal parlor you never use in your 4-story brownstone you occupy alone, i'm sorry, but that's wasteful, offensive, and bordering on immoral. and i'm going to call that as i see it.