Posted on 03/13/2009 8:07:51 PM PDT by Disambiguator
The downturn has accomplished what a generation of designers and planners could not: it has turned back the tide of suburban sprawl. In the wake of the foreclosure crisis many new subdivisions are left half built and more established suburbs face abandonment. Cul-de-sac neighborhoods once filled with the sound of backyard barbecues and playing children are falling silent. Communities like Elk Grove, Calif., and Windy Ridge, N.C., are slowly turning into ghost towns with overgrown lawns, vacant strip malls and squatters camping in empty homes.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
I'm sure we'll see more of this kind of agitprop in the coming days.
Thanks a lot, Liberalism.
Spread the pain around, not the wealth. That’s Liberalism.
Nothing short of millions of inconvenient people dying, along with their kids and their barbecues, will satisfy these PC freaks.
The difficult part is when owners just abandon homes and let them go to weed. It costs the cities at least $10,000 just to raze them. Cities like Detroit are absolutely blighted with these abandoned homes. If they were turned back into green space those places would be much more livable.
Who writes this sh&*? Bet he NEVER even researched this nonsense...probably flows right out of his little mind.
I’m already seeing it. My public library has shown a couple movies with discussion afterwords on the death of suburbia. All over towns and cities near Chicago are ugly townhomes being built in the down town areas. I’m sure it’s going around all over the country too.
So a $500K house in the suburbs foreclosed upon is more of a blight than the $500K house in the urban center?
This guy is just wishful thinking. Families aren’t going to leave the suburbs for urban life. There is not one major city school system that is decent. Property taxes are usually higher, and people are willing to put up with commutes so their kids have a yard to play in.
Blarney.
Yea, these “urban planners” have been trying to eliminate suburbs and “expansion” for a long time....they can just keep wishing we march in step to their “plans”....wait until they control our “healthcare”....I’d bet “cities only”, must go to the urban hellhole for “care”. I’d also betLOTS of rationing and hoops to jump thru.
I have absolutely no desire to leave Wetumpka and move back into Montgomery, with the high crime, high taxes, wasteful government and declining standard of living.
You have never encountered a smaller mind than a city planner.
Because of the building code process, and the fact that it is practically impossible in a place like Detroit to rehab a place yourself without using expensive contractors for all the various trades, they’re getting what they deserve from too much regulation.
"The New York Times, visited one such tract mansion that was split into four units, or "quartets," each with its own entrance, which is not unlike what happened to many stately homes in the 1930s. The difference, of course, is that the 1930s homes held up because they were made with solid materials, and today's spec homes are all hollow doors, plastic columns and faux stone facades."
This light construction does not hold up to the types that are moving in. I have been in apartments where every door and bi-fold closet door were torn off the hinges. I always heard the same crap from the tenants that the crap was cheap. Sure it's cheap but these people would tear up anything that wasn't solid wood, metal or nailed down. And of course they want everything replaced for free. Don't get me started on what they do to appliances. Dishwashers and toilets were the worst. Refrigerators and stoves were just plain nasty.
MAjor barf alert. Isn't this what "that man" is all about? Creating a depression so all their maoist ideas can be foisted upon us? B@stards!
What arrogant jerks.
They were wrong 20 years ago and they are still wrong today.
You will never get me to move into an urban city - ever.
It is just incredible, the knee-jerk contempt that liberals have for suburbia. It's like it's written into their DNA, a psychological tic that they all have. To have a nice house away from the city with a lawn for the kids to play in -- this is a swindle on par with Madoff to a lib. Incredible.
I’m kinda enjoying our “suburbia blight”....lots of empty lots (about 14 acres worth right behind us) and an empty lot next to us....I’m planting wild flower seeds, and cuttings of snowball bushes and other plants and shrubs on these lots...since I don’t think anyone cares, or will be building for a long time......and enjoying the sunshine because...the stupid “city planners” planned lots so small that you have very little space between the homes.....and little sun, when a house towers over you.
Almost all of the foreclosure “crisis” is happening in less than 10 cities. Democrat sh!tholes like Detroit, Cleveland, and good old sodom and gomorrah on the west cost (sf and la for those of you in Rio Linda.)
That fact is the Internet (really data communications) allows people to leave the cities and continue doing their architecture design, fashion design, software writing anywhere they damn well please.
I did it more than 20 years ago and I’m not going back. I know others that have done the same.
People move to suburbia for many reasons, but around where I live they also do it because you can get so much more house for the money. It more than makes up the extra cost in gas. And if what they say is true, the burbs will become cheaper still.
This isn’t the first time this has happened. In the oil bust of 1982 whole neighborhoods in Houston went empty for a while. And, though I hate to say it, many of them didn’t really recover. They turned into urban sh!tholes of squatters and section 8 losers.
Sure, people are moving back in — sometimes it’s because the crime and criminals have followed them out. But it’s fun to live inside where there’s so much more going on... nightlife, culture.
Suburb haters ought to consider that the dimensions of the average suburban lot are similar to those set for millenia by families settled in small villages in rural Africa. Granted, few American suburban families keep goats, chickens, and a vegetable patch next to the house, but suburban yards give a deeply appealing sense of privacy and outdoor leisure.
I got sidetracked, but the reason I posted that quote was to make the point that fashion designers and architects are pretty much useless when it comes to the real work of making a city go.
“Cul-de-sac neighborhoods once filled with the sound of backyard barbecues and playing children are falling silent. Communities like Elk Grove, Calif., and Windy Ridge, N.C., are slowly turning into ghost towns with overgrown lawns, vacant strip malls and squatters camping in empty homes.”
Yeah, everywhere you go, this is what you see. Bread lines, tent cities, dead bodies in the streets. /s
I’ve often daydreamed about 10 or 20 families, Christians in my dream world, purchasing every other house on a blighted city block or two, and moving in. It would be an instant good neighborhood. All those families could help each other out, plant a church, and get a house for $5,000. They could minister together in the city. If it were up to me, I’d do it.
Hmmm...there’s probably places in Detroit, Chicago, Arizona, or Florida, where you might be able to do that...to a certain extent at least....just don’t TELL anyone your Christians....that’ll put you in a fishbowl!!!
I live in an inner city neighborhood now, and I love it.
Yeah, you know, we could do it as a mission work. I’m not recruiting, because Mr. Marie would never go for it. But I still think it’s a good idea.
“Refrigerators and stoves were just plain nasty.”
Mirrors the tenants.
I once lived next door to the city planner in Apache Junction, AZ (a nice town since gone to seed). Put a couple drinks in the guy and the jerk really came out.
Besides, it costs more to live in city limits than it does outside of the city, unless I move to the slums in Ypsi.
I’ve lived in a suburb and two different major urban centers. The suburb was pleasant, but yeah, boring as heck. If you need anything, it’s like a 20 minute drive to get there, no night life, etc. The first urban place was a complete ghetto (I was in college), my neighbors stole my mail, I was renting from a slumlord, not fun. Now a live in a pretty cool city though, and I can walk around the corner to the grocery, I live near a big park, there are probably 15 each of clubs, bars (no need to drive!) and churches within easy walking distance, depending on your mood =)
I bet i’ll want to move out to the suburbs when I’m older and have kids, but being young and in a city rocks.
That's all I needed to see. He's the major founder of the "new urbanism" and "creative class" junk that is all the rage these days.
Rabbit hutches are for liberals and idiots!
Is this true?
No.
Thanks. Sounded fishy.
I’m Jewish, and I’d move into that neighborhood with you...I’ll do the baking. :)
You have never encountered a smaller mind than a city planner.
***Almost tagline worthy
Cheers!
The big city Marxists live in fear of being surrounded by heavily armed Christians living in the countryside. Their water and food could be shut off anytime so they also fear that. Plus they don’t have the intelligence or skill to produce their own food. Hell, most liberals don’t know how to turn the water on in their rat box tenements. We in the countryside could bring the big city Marxists to their knees and make them our slaves, but we’re Christian about it and allow them to live. Don’t know for how much longer, though.
It's made worse by the fact that many suburbanites are also *gasp* gun owners!
Wishful thinking on this author’s part...one word...schools. Most city schools are awful-can’t send your dog to one. Private schools are very expensive these days so the Suburbs will be back...even the next generation (my kids for example) talks about that house with a white picket fence.
Thank you for pointing it out. I sent a note to the author asking him to tell me exactly which street or neighborhood he was talking about.
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