Nattie’s metaverse romance began with anonymous texting. At first “C” would admit only to living in a nearby town. Nattie eventually learned “Clem” was a man with a solitary office job like hers. For Nattie “lived, as it were, in two worlds” — the world of office tedium and an online world where “she did not lack social intercourse.”

Art exhibited little to no correlation with any other major asset class from 1997 through 2021, making it a potentially attractive diversifier. Consistently low correlation across asset classes appears a characteristic unique to art. Correlations are close to zero across the board compared with other asset classes, potentially implying that art may help to diversify a portfolio no matter what might already be in it. In contrast, other asset classes have proven to be a mixed bag in terms of their correlation benefits — having low correlations to some asset classes, but higher correlations to others.

The domestic trucking industry, which transports nearly 75 percent of the nation’s freight by tonnage, is grappling with mid- and long-term challenges that have contributed to ongoing supply chain instability. Demographic, regulatory, technological, economic and environmental forces are converging to reshape the industry and solve some challenges while presenting new ones.

Consumers have a growing desire to know more about where their food comes from. At the same time, supply chain vulnerabilities, environmental challenges, demographic shifts and advances in technology are prompting regulators, investors and growers to view the processes of food production and distribution through a different, more critical lens.

With passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, which contains $370 billion for climate and energy programs, policy experts are forecasting a big expansion in clean electricity generation. One source that’s poised for growth is offshore wind power. Today the United States has just two operating offshore wind farms, off of Rhode Island and North Carolina, with a combined generating capacity of 42 megawatts. For comparison, the new Traverse Wind Energy Center in Oklahoma has 356 turbines and a 998-megawatt generating capacity. But many more projects are in development, mostly along the Atlantic coast.

Parking plays an important role in any new development, and it continues to be a vital asset for the life of that development once it’s completed. But parking can be challenging to manage and should never be treated as an afterthought. Poorly designed or managed parking can pose safety and security issues, can affect tenant satisfaction, and can be costly to maintain. These are issues that developers, owners and investors have wrestled with for years.

The world is in the middle of the first energy crisis of the 21st century. High energy prices, especially for oil, gas and coal, are driving decades-high inflation in various countries, some of which are also experiencing energy shortages. Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine has exacerbated the crisis, given that the country is both a major producer and exporter of oil and natural gas.

The United Kingdom is set to become home to the world’s largest automated drone superhighway within the next two years. The drones will be used on the 164-mile Skyway project connecting towns and cities as part of a $334 million funding package for the aerospace sector, says a report by the BBC.

Around the world, agriculture accounts for 70 percent of all freshwater use. I study computers and information technology in the Purdue Polytechnic Institute, where we tackle sustainability and environmental challenges with interdisciplinary research into the agriculture internet of things (ag-IoT).

There are many barometers that can be used to measure the overall health of the United States. Two of the most important ones boil down to this set of questions: 1) Is there any country in the world that wouldn’t trade our economy for theirs? 2) Are millions of people around the world still pining to become Americans?

The RV/boat storage sector has all the makings of an emerging niche asset class: elevated demand fueled by demographic and social trends, strong potential for income growth, and a dearth of institutional capital that creates an opportunity to exploit for deep-pocketed investors. RV/boat storage is viewed as a subsector of the self-storage segment, as many vehicle storage facilities are situated in properties that also contain traditional storage. But the RV/boat storage market has unique demand drivers that may enable it to eventually break out on its own.

Large-scale moves away from expensive and dense gateway metros to spacious rural areas and more affordable non-gateway metros characterized the early days of the pandemic. Recent official U.S. Census data covering the first approximately 18 months of the pandemic clearly illustrates these two dynamics.

With the many economic forces at play, investors are thinking more deeply about reconfiguring their real estate portfolios in a more defensive posture. One of the proponents of such measures is Todd Henderson, head of real estate, Americas, DWS.

Over the past few months we have spent a lot of time traveling throughout North America and Europe, speaking with clients about what role natural resources investments should play in their portfolios. At these meetings, we learned first-hand what our investors worry about the most. Recession fears loom large. Investors firmly believe inflation has gone from transitory to intractable in a few short months — something we have been predicting since 2019.