Today’s Solutions: March 19, 2026

Ostentatious parsimony was the phrase used by Kate Macintosh, the woman responsible for some of the most ambitious local authority housing of the 1960s and 70s, to describe the spending environment for the social architect. Housing ministers would speak with pride of stripping out unnecessary extravagances, such as balconies and windows. The philosophy went beyond thrift. In social housing, anything above the bare minimum was lavish, and anything lavish was an insult to the public

Print this article
More of Today's Solutions

Overthinking is a learned habit, and therapists say you can unlearn it

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM "Just stop overthinking" is advice that tells you nothing useful about how to actually follow it. The mind ...

Read More

A single dose of psilocybin gave smokers six times better odds of quitting th...

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM A new clinical trial from Johns Hopkins University produced results that surprised even the researchers behind it. Participants who ...

Read More

Rusty social skills? 5 ways to reconnect with socialization

Now that there are more opportunities to go out and socialize, you may be experiencing some mixed emotions regarding social events. You may have ...

Read More

AI-powered blood test shows promise in early breast cancer detection

BY THE OPTIMIST DAILY EDITORIAL TEAM Early detection of breast cancer dramatically increases survival rates, but identifying the disease in its earliest stages remains ...

Read More