DC-Area Apartment Rents Rise, Vacancy Second Lowest in the Country (Urban Turf via DCentric): “… rents in the DC area for Class A and B apartments have risen 3.6 percent over the past twelve months while vacancy rates sit at 2.8 percent, the lowest for any metro area in the country except for New York City.” For Class A apartments (primarily large buildings constructed after 1991), the vacancy rate is just 1.6% and rental rates “averaged $2,582/month, up from $2,448/month in September 2010.” So not only is affordable rental housing difficult to locate in the city, any rental housing is not easy to come by — and the search alone can require both funds and time.

At Coolidge High, Student Election Serves As Lesson (DCist): “… what if students at a local high school could cast their ballots much the same way that adults do? [...] Would they take the whole process a little more seriously?” This fall, third-year social studies teacher Lauren McKenzie called the DC Board of Elections and Ethics and asked if the District’s election authority would run the student election at Coolidge. “The students seem to have gotten the message [...] Additionally, 83 students submitted voter registration applications, amongst those 16-year-olds that will receive their voter registration cards in the mail once they hit legal voting age.”

Social Change Impact Report (Walden University & Harris Interactive): “Americans believe they can make the world a better place with their own actions (85%) and nearly all adults (92%) have taken action to engage in positive social change in the past year [...] Adults find education to be the most important social change issue right now (40%), followed by health issues (35%) and poverty issues (33%).” And most are looking to new technology and social media for ideas — “Nine out of 10 Americans (88%) agree that digital technology can turn interest in a cause into a movement more quickly than anything else.”