HAPPY 4th OF JULY

The Great American Cookout
Throw the Ultimate July 4th Party

Every year North Americans head outdoors to celebrate summer and Independence Day. Now I know you don't want to be outdone by the neighbors, so I've put together some of the best information for you to make the most out of your summer entertaining. I must emphasize that the secret to a successful cookout is in the planning. Whether you will be grilling hamburgers, steaks, chicken or fish or maybe smoking ribs or brisket you need to know more than just the secrets to barbecuing & grilling. This is why I have put together this list of great resources to help you out.


Entertaining and Party Organizing

The first part of throwing a successful summertime bash is knowing how to cook for a crowd. If you happen to be a woman, don't be put off by the idea of grilling. Grillin' for Gals is a great guide to get you going. Remember to you are planning more than a meal, it's a party.

When cooking for a large gathering make sure you prepare something for everyone. Throw on a couple of Hot Dogs for the kids while you are grilling the rest. In fact, try getting the kids fed first to alleviate their hunger for summer foods.

Cooking and Recipes

When putting together a meal decide the best way to prepare the dishes quickly and easily. Kebabs are a great main dish because you can cook everything at once. You don't have to stick to the basics. Try a grilled meal with a Chinese, Italian, French or Mexican style.

Start off with some great appetizers for the grill or other appetizers.
If you want tradition then you need a good recipe for Potato Salad, Cole Slaw or Barbecue Beans.
If you or some of your guests are vegetarians you can still do some 4th of July entertaining, only vegetarian style. Vegetarian grilling can be more than just veggie burgers, but you will be a success if you make them from scratch.

Remember to cool things off with some Frozen Delights or go the extra mile with Italian ice cream. There is a lot you can do with desserts like a nice dish of dirt or a margarita pie.

Drinks

When it comes to serving iced tea don't forget the iced tea, or even the iced coffee. Coordinate your drinks with the meal and the season. A slightly chilled wine will go great with grilled foods. There are also a lot of cool, refreshing summer cocktails you can choose from. You might even what to check out some patriotic drinks for this July 4th. Of course no great cookout is complete without beef. What you need to make this even particularly patriotic is a good selection of beers. Colleen Graham has just what you need to stock your cooler.

No matter what you plan for this summer's entertaining I know a good place to find everything you need.

Young Professionals

Best Cities For Young Professionals
Matt Woolsey



Head to the Big Apple, and your chances of getting the corner office might not be as far off as you think.

That's because New York City tops our list as the No. 1 city for young professionals.

That likely comes as a shock to, well, no one. Many of America's best companies, as determined by Forbes rankings of the best 400 big businesses and best 200 small businesses, including financial giant Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) and media conglomerate News Corp. (nyse: NWS - news - people ) are in New York. Throw in New York's bars, clubs and world-class dining, and you get a city teaming with young professionals.

San Francisco clocked in at No. 2 and Atlanta at No. 3. Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Boston and Seattle filled spots four through seven, and Minneapolis, Philadelphia and Denver closed out the top 10.

Behind The Numbers Our list was compiled by tracking where the graduates of top universities across the country ended up 10 years after commencement; where the best business opportunities exist; which cities had the most young and unmarried people; and which cities paid young professionals the best.

To see where graduates of elite schools chose to pursue their careers, we looked at Class of 1997 alumni location data from six elite universities across the country--Harvard, Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Northwestern and Rice. The data indicated where graduates have settled 10 years later, and where their professional lives have matured.

We then excluded alumni that remained close to school. Harvard grads in Massachusetts--nixed; Dukies who stayed in North Carolina--gone; Stanford Cardinals roosting in California--tossed. The goal: to determine which cities offer such strong opportunities for young professionals that they're willing to pick up and move across the country for them.

Some cities are bigger than others, of course. So we adjusted where elite grads ended up against overall population size to measure the respective concentrations of young professionals. This allowed smaller cities such as Portland and Austin to compete equally with heavyweights such as New York and Los Angeles.

Then we stirred the locations of prized jobs into the mix. Each year, Forbes selects America's 400 best big businesses and 200 best small businesses. We used the locations of those 600 companies to determine which cities had the best professional opportunities for the under-35 set.

Money is important too. To figure out how far yearly income will go, we measured cities' variations in starting salary using data from New York-based Mercer Human Resource Consulting and adjusted it for cost of living with our own Forbes index; the idea being that the more greenhorn grads a city can attract with a decent salary to cost of living ratio, the more likely they'll stay and develop in that area.

Of course, even the most driven young professionals need to let off steam. With that in mind, the final metric was measured which cities had the highest share of never-married people in their 20s and 30s. Never married is an important qualifier. For example, of the 40 largest cities, Salt Lake City has the third-highest population share of people ages 25 to 34, but its standing as No. 27 in the never-married category really puts a damper on the nightlife.

The bottom 10 cities were brought down by a variety of causes. Salary to cost of living submarined Miami, Norfolk, Va., and San Antonio. The inability to attract top grads and top companies hurt Detroit and Las Vegas, and all our measurements converged on Tampa, Fla., beating it down to last place on our list.

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Nashville West shopping

Nashville West developers bet big on Charlotte PikeShopping center to house more than 20 stores

By CHAS SISK, The Tennessean

Even their own wives couldn't believe what developers Mark McDonald and William Oldacre were proposing.

An up-market shopping center on the western end of Charlotte Pike? It was too much to believe.


"They said, 'You're out of your minds. No one will go to Charlotte to shop,' " McDonald recalled. "And I said, 'You will go. It's more convenient than Green Hills.' "

McDonald, Oldacre and partner Thomas Newton are betting big that they can reshape the perceptions of people such as their spouses: affluent men and women who live in Nashville's upscale neighborhoods of Belle Meade, Green Hills and Hillwood.

Late last year, the developers' $135 million Nashville West shopping center opened on a 100-acre expanse between Interstate 40 and Charlotte Pike, bringing major national retailers to a street that historically has tended to attract few businesses larger than independent grocery stores, fast-food restaurants and small car lots.

With this project, Newton Oldacre McDonald believes it can turn the western end of Charlotte Pike into a retail center capable of challenging established trading posts in Green Hills and Cool Springs. And to make it possible, they're pouring millions of dollars into road improvements, landscaping and an expanded public park.

The investment signals a trend that is just beginning to take hold in Nashville: Developers are beginning to believe that they can build successful new shopping centers, at least partially, from the remains of old, failing ones.

Others may follow

Nashville West's fate could point the way for others interested in turning around similar outposts among Nashville's aging shopping corridors.

"It's having a great impact, and it's only going to get better as they add stores, the park," said Metro Councilman Billy Walls, whose district includes Nashville West and the surrounding neighborhood.

"It (the site) had no future. No one was even looking at that until these developers came and said, 'We're proposing this.' "

McDonald and Oldacre said they had been eyeing the property since the late 1980s. Then the property was partially occupied by the Hillwood Plaza shopping center, a strip mall anchored by Wal-Mart. That center began to slide in 1998, when Wal-Mart relocated to another shopping center farther west on Charlotte Pike.

But Newton Oldacre McDonald did not decide to take a chance until three years ago, when H.G. Hill Realty readied plans for the $70 million Hill Center at Green Hills, a 48,000-square-foot shopping center on the site of an old grocery store.

That project convinced them that a redevelopment project could work, Oldacre said.

20 stores planned

The first Nashville West store, Costco, opened in November. It has since been followed by a Target, Dick's Sporting Goods and Best Buy, among others.

Plans call for building more than 20 stores with a total of 700,000 square feet of retail space, the equivalent of 16 acres under roof.
Newtown Oldacre McDonald also envisions building six to 10 restaurants, 50,000 square feet of out-parcel space, condos and a renovated Metro park.

According to the firm's research, more than one in five households within a 10-minute drive of Nashville West earn $100,000 a year or more. That's nearly twice the ratio found in Davidson County as a whole.

Newton Oldacre McDonald believes that many of these people shop in either the increasingly crowded retail center along Hillsboro Pike in Green Hills or trek to the area around CoolSprings Galleria in Franklin.

Nashville West is one-fifth of the distance to Cool Springs for Belle Meade residents and gets far less traffic than Green Hills.

"There are no large (undeveloped) tracts of land to develop, so what you can do is take an existing site and market to the demographics," said Brian Forrester, an agent with The Shopping Center Group in Nashville. "You've got to be creative. … This is a creative project."

Landscaping costs $3 M

To lure upscale shoppers to Nashville West, Newton Oldacre McDonald strived to create a shopping experience that exceeds that of the typical shopping center. The firm spent $3 million on landscaping, including restoring and extending a 19th-century stone wall to give the center a unique look.

The firm is spending $2 million on improvements to Metro's H.G. Hill Park. Those plans include building a 4-acre park that will remain under Metro control but will be maintained by the tenants of Nashville West.

Another advantage to the location: It's not as likely to have many competitors. Shopping centers in Nashville's suburbs frequently have to fend off competitors located across the street.

But Nashville West is tucked into a fairly developed area, with the hilly topography reducing the chances that another center will enter the market soon. That means that any competitor would also have to redevelop, likely at a considerable expense.

"We don't believe there's another site like this," McDonald said.
"If there is one, we can't imagine what it is."

How Much is To Much?

The 60-storey house for just one family

This 60-storey house is for just one family.
India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, is planning a palace in the heart of Mumbai with helipad, health club, hanging gardens and six floors of car parking.

His wife, mother and three children will live there with him, looked after by 600 live-in staff.
Construction has already started on what will eventually be a 175m tower and planners are aiming to complete it in September 2008.

Earlier this year, Forbes rated Mr Ambani as the richest resident Indian with a net worth of US$20.1 billion.

He came 14th in Forbes' 2007 worldwide rankings.

Currently he is chairman of petroleum major Reliance Industries Ltd, India's largest private sector company

The building, already worth £500 million, could start a rush on skyscrapers.

THE DAILY MAIL

housing market

US HOUSING MARKET

Live in Seattle? If you own your home, chances are you're celebrating.

That's because the city's median home price in the first quarter of this year hit $380,200, an increase of 12.3% from a year earlier, according to data from the National Association of Realtors (NAR). Median home prices in the Pacific Northwest as a whole soared; in Portland, Ore., prices jumped 8.9%, and in Salem, Ore., they grew 15.6%.

Southern metros also boasted gains. In San Antonio, prices went up 11.2%, and Austin, Tex., prices climbed 5.4%. Charlotte, N.C., and Raleigh, N.C., rose 6.4% and 6.3%, and Richmond, Va., and Norfolk, Va., improved 6.2% and 5.9%.

"What we're seeing now are the areas which still have a strong economy, but didn't have the overheated prices [during the housing boom], are the ones holding on strong now," says Kermit Baker, a senior research fellow at Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies.

In the Northeast, the New York City metropolitan area turned in a steady 1% growth rate, and smaller metros like Albany, N.Y.; Trenton, N.J.; and Allentown Pa.--which improved by 6.3%, 7.1% and 5.8% respectively--helped overcome Boston's continuing slump to lift the Northeast to a 1.2% overall price growth, making it the only region in the black.
Now the bad news.

Cloudy Skies Median home prices in Florida are down, according to NAR: Tampa by 2%, and Sarasota, Palm Bay and Daytona by an average of 9%. Overall, Florida prices plunged 25%, making the Sunshine State not so sunny. Miami, however, which had been hamstrung early in the housing downturn, improved by 2%. The rally may be tenuous however, as 23% of Miami housing loans are subprime, according to First American LoanPerformance, a mortgage data provider.

"We've had 30 subprime lenders go under, which leads to a tightening of credit," says Jonathan Miller, president of Miller Samuel, a New York-based real estate appraisal and consultancy firm of lenders nationwide. "That adds one more barrier to transactions, something that couldn't have come at a more delicate time for the housing market. On a national level, there are a lot of markets which are going to have some problems."

The Gulf Coast, where home prices had roared back at a double-digit clip the year following Hurricane Katrina, is one such market. Biloxi, Miss., grew by 15.7%, and Baton Rouge, La., by 9.7%, but the subprime hammer came down on New Orleans, where a 20% delinquency rate on subprime loans contributed to an 11% drop in home values, the NAR reports.

Worse News To Come? For many markets, things may get worse before they get better. Nationwide, prices fell by 6.6%, a number that makes sense at this point in the housing cycle, experts say.

"When housing prices slip, nothing really changes until you try to sell, which is what we've had happen in the last couple of months," says Miller. "I don't think the housing slowdown has fully hit the national economy yet."

Overexpansion was a problem for most metro areas. Homeowner vacancy rates stood at 2.8% in the first quarter of this year, a statistically significant rise from the 2.1% rate a year ago and the 1.7% average between 1995 and 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Those high inventory numbers flatten prices and make new development less lucrative.
"It's becoming more difficult to put together financing for new development projects," says Miller. "That'll actually provide some constraint on supply, but that's a couple years down the road. You figure the lead on new development is probably two years, so it's going to be a couple years before units stop coming off the conveyor belt."

Moving forward, there is concern surrounding the strength of the national macro economy. In the first quarter of 2007, growth came in at a disappointing 1.3%--hampered by 4% inflation--but the Federal Reserve predicts growth between 2.5% and 3% for the remainder of 2007.

"We do have a massive inventory correction, which will happen a lot easier and a lot less painfully if it continues to happen during an economic expansion," says Baker. "The fear is now that even though the direct housing hit was absorbed, the indirect hit could be serious too. We're into that now, but it doesn't look like it's enough to throw the economy into recession."
Some might disagree. Fears about the ripple effect of the housing market have traders particularly bearish.

The S&P/Case-Shiller housing futures market on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (nyse: CME - news - people ) is based on repeat sales of homes across 10 markets ranging from Boston to San Diego. There, traders are betting on a 4.5% decline from now until next year.

"There's a limitation to the futures market, because it only trades one year forward," says Fritz Siebel, a broker with Traditional Financial Services, the largest trader of housing futures. "For 2007 to 2008, the market doesn't look good, but it doesn't mean there's not a bottom around the corner."

Source: Matt Woolsey, Forbes.com