UNTIL five years ago, it seemed that the breakneck pace of development in Effingham County, a Savannah suburb in southeast Georgia, knew no limits.

Skip to next paragraphEnlarge This ImageTami Chappell for The New York Times

Stan Milam and Sandy Martin complain of traffic.

But like other fast-growing areas across the country, Effingham had to learn that large-scale expansion often comes at a price. In the countyÂ’s case, it was the long-term integrity of the vast underground water supply that serves it as well as other major areas in the South.

“The prevalent mentality that natural resources have no end has come to an abrupt halt here,” said John A. Henry, chief executive of Effingham’s Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development Authority. Because overuse of its wells could draw in saltwater, the county can no longer rely solely on the wells for business and residential use, he explained, and it has been buying water from Savannah for the last five years.

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Two photographs of properties on the market with the “Living In” article last Sunday about Glenbrook, Conn., were reversed. The picture on the left showed 100 Clovelly Road, a 1961 split-level ranch, and the picture on the right showed 148 Colonial Road, a three-family Victorian. (Go to Article)

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A group of tenants filed a federal racketeering lawsuit against one of the cityÂ’s fastest-growing residential landlords yesterday, accusing it of harassment, fraud, rent overcharges and illegal evictions.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan, contends that the landlord, the Pinnacle Group, and its owner, Joel Weiner, systematically evicted tenants to raise rents in apartments throughout the city, but primarily in units concentrated in Harlem, Washington Heights and the Bronx.

Because Pinnacle owns several thousand apartment units in those areas — most of them bought during the past four years — tenants and their lawyers said the company’s actions constituted an attack on rent-regulated housing in some of Manhattan’s few remaining working-class neighborhoods.

Pinnacle has acknowledged sending out some 5,000 letters, called dispossess notices, to tenants in about a quarter of its 21,000 units during a 29-month period from 2004 through 2006, citing nonpayment of rent, invalid line of succession for occupancy and other violations; however, it said only a few hundred people had actually been evicted. Issuing a dispossess notice is a legal requirement before an eviction can take place. The company said that its rate of eviction was below the industry average.

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In Houston, $225,000 will buy a three-bedroom house with a game room, den, in-ground pool and hot tub.

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In Manhattan, it will buy a parking space. No windows, no view. No walls.

While real estate in much of the country languishes, property in Manhattan continues to escalate in price, and that includes parking spaces. Some buyers do not even own cars, but grab the spaces as investments, renting them out to cover their costs.

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On paper, the story of Laurie Pike would make anybody envious. A style director for Los Angeles Magazine, she jets four times a year from Los Angeles to Paris, where she has not one, but three, pieds-à-terre, in three very different parts of the city.

Skip to next paragraphEnlarge This ImageLee Hoagland for The New York Times

Laurie Pike in her studio in Montmartre. More Photos »

MultimediaSlide ShowA Second Life in Paris

But hers is not the story of a silver-spoon life. Rather, it is about learning to turn difficult situations into opportunities.

“In 2001, my business went under — a magazine in L.A. called Glue — and I was $100,000 in debt,” said Ms. Pike, 44, sitting on a blue pullout couch in her studio in Montmartre. Yet, four years after entering a debt-management program, Ms. Pike suddenly found herself receiving her paycheck as supervisor of fashion coverage at the influential Los Angeles monthly magazine — much more money than she had learned to rely on — and decided to invest.

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OF course, the whole idea of having a second home is to get away from it all. For most people, that involves a plane or car trip to some unspoiled corner of nature.

Skip to next paragraphEnlarge This ImagePeter Wynn Thompson for The New York Times

Monica Sexton and her husband, Jim, have a water view from their 19th-floor condo in the Bath Club in Miami Beach.

Others, however, just take the elevator.

“We love the serenity,” said Karen Wilson, who, with her husband, Doug, recently bought a 22nd-floor Manhattan pied-à-terre at the Visionaire, a building under construction in Battery Park City. “My husband and I like the busyness of the street, but we also like to escape and see that busyness from a distance,” she said.

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QMy boyfriend has had a lease on a rent-stabilized apartment in New York City for the last 10 years. I moved in with him three years ago. I am worried that if anything happens to him I will be forced to leave the apartment because I am not on the lease. Could this happen?

A Daphna Zekaria, a Manhattan tenant lawyer, said that the letter writer should have nothing to worry about if he and his boyfriend have established themselves as a nontraditional couple for purposes of getting succession rights under the rent laws.

Ms. Zekaria explained that the law allows a family member, a term that can include one partner in a nontraditional relationship, to remain in a regulated apartment after the named tenant dies or moves out if the family member has lived there for two years. (The time is reduced to one year when the tenant seeking succession rights is 62 or older or is disabled.)

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HOW do old buildings disappear? Sometimes all at once, under the wrecking ball. But more often they fade away on little catÂ’s feet, first the cornice, then a doorway, then the windows, then a balcony … leaving behind nothing but an architectural zombie.

Skip to next paragraphEnlarge This ImageStuart Brorson, top; Kitra Cahana/The New York Times

The original doors, top, have given way to nondescript replacements, bottom.

Kitra Cahana/The New York Times

A seascape of vibrant glass tiles flanks the entrance and shows two exotic marine creatures the size of Great Danes — perhaps colossal angelfish.

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WHEN it comes to a town house, Gary Rabin, a hedge fund manager, told The New York Times two years ago, bigger is better.

At the time, Mr. Rabin had just traded up. He sold his 19-foot-wide house on West 12th Street in the West Village and put much of the proceeds into a 38-foot-wide 19th-century town house a few blocks away on West Fourth Street.

“I have to admit, it makes a huge difference,” Mr. Rabin said at the time, speaking of his extra-wide new home. “There’s an element of pride when you walk out the door in the morning.”

Mr. Rabin’s chauvinism provoked more than 50 outraged and amused comments on Brownstoner, an Internet blog focused on the historic neighborhoods of Brooklyn, where many brownstones are narrow, but beautiful. The entries were headlined: “Size Matters. So Do Money and Ego.”

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ONE JACKSON SQUARE, an 11-story luxury condominium planned for Greenwich Village, is likely to catch the eye — though some preservationists say that will be happening for all the wrong reasons.

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A rendering of One Jackson Square in Greenwich Village, which preservationists say is too flashy.

To start with, varying-width panels of glass will make up the buildingÂ’s exterior walls, which will curve in and out like sine waves, increasing their potential to shimmer.

Then thereÂ’s the fact that the building will tower over much of the surrounding neighborhood of Beaux-Arts former banks and midrise masonry apartments.

Also, the condo — to be developed by RFR Realty, based in (more…)