And again, from the Globe, an op-ed on renting versus homeowning by Nicolas Retsinas, the director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard. Among his other arguments, Mr. Retsinas states:

Although the pitfalls of homeownership are clearly visible, there are advantages (some real, some only perceived) of homeownership. Homeownership gives the person a genuine stake, physical as well as psychic, in a neighborhood. Because homeowners are not so mobile, people form stronger ties with neighbors.

Overall, I am sure he is correct, and anyone who has lived in mostly renter-occupied neighborhoods (I’m thinking of my first two years of grad school, living in the Allston student ghetto) knows what it’s like when the majority of residents feel no accountability to their property or neighbors. And I must admit that, as a social scientist myself, it can be very annoying when you tell someone about an overall statistical trend and they immediately start spewing out the two or three exception to that finding that they personally know about.

But since I’m not at a cocktail party with Mr. Retsinas, but rather here in the comfort of my own blog, I’m going to do exactly that.

Mr. Improbable and I are renters in part because we are committed to our community: a community that we can’t afford to own property in. We probably have enough money to get our own place if we were willing to move 45 minutes or so out of town, but our connections to Harvard run broad and deep–it’s where I work, it’s where we put on the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony (tickets for which are available now!), it’s where we’ve met many of our friends and colleagues. And, of course, we have our pizza guy and the great coffee shop on the corner that doesn’t have wifi, so you can actually get some damn writing done instead of noodling around on Facebook for hours, and Milo’s doggie friends, and all of that.

We love our neighborhood, and we can only live in it if we rent.

I wonder if that’s true of other people in some of the area’s high-priced real-estate markets, as well?

In case any of you haven’t seen, in addition to today’s column, I have a feature on money etiquette in today’s magazine. This is an excerpt from Miss Conduct’s Mind Over Manners (which goes on sale Tuesday!).

Also, boston.com has a fun photo feature based on tips from MCMom–plus three bonus tips on Facebook etiquette.

The life of an author in the 21st century. My publisher had me do a homemade promotional video that she could shop around to television shows. I did two–one on financial etiquette, one on pet etiquette (co-starring Milo, of course!) Here’s the first. It’s very homemade, but it was good enough to get me on the “Today Show,” so hey!