Posted on 10/21/2009 10:24:21 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
CHARLOTTE -- A monument to the financial crisis is rising amid this city's thicket of skyscrapers: gleaming, glass-walled trophy tower that was intended as a fitting headquarters for Wachovia's national banking empire.
It will open instead as the headquarters of a regional power company. Wachovia, unable to survive a run of bad decisions, was swallowed by San Francisco-based Wells Fargo during the depths of the crisis last year.
Few American cities prospered more over the past two decades than Charlotte, its growth propelled and gilded by Wachovia and its crosstown rival, Bank of America. Executives shoehorned gaudy mansions into old neighborhoods around downtown. Workers poured into vast subdivisions on the city's ever-expanding periphery. With coffers overflowing, giddy public officials spent tax dollars on a manmade river for whitewater rafting.
Now Charlotte is suffering. Unemployment has spiked to 12 percent, well above the national average. Subdivisions sit unfinished. Mansions cannot be sold. The school system, which for years had recruited teachers from shrinking cities such as Detroit, laid off more than 1,000 employees this summer.
The crisis that shattered several of the nation's largest banks and left many of the survivors struggling to recover has also damaged the bank towns, the smaller cities that became financial centers in recent years -- less celebrated than New York but even more dependent on the industry.
The unemployment rate in Wilmington, Del., the nation's credit card capital thanks to lender-friendly state laws, has spiked above 11 percent. In California's Orange County, formerly the epicenter of subprime mortgage lending, the office vacancy rate stands at almost 17 percent. Other cities less focused on financial services also have taken hits, including Cleveland, which lost its largest bank, National City, and Seattle, home to the giant mortgage lender Washington Mutual, which became the largest bank to fail
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Charlotte has been hit hard. Now that building is bust, where will all of the illegal immigrants work?
This reminds me of the mid 80’s here in Texas. You could drive through towns and see buildings boarded up with plywood. They looked like ghost towns. I’m afraid this time it will be even worse and it’s by design. O and his communist ilk plan to take over by making the majority of people totally dependent upon the government.
O was elected because, unfortunately, there were a lot more communists voters in this country than we ever thought would exist.
Charlotte is really felling the pain. There are lots of “snow birds” trying to sell their homes to get out of town.
And because his opponent [for whatever bizarre psychological reasons] decided to throw the election.
I made sure God knew I was voting for Sarah and not for McCain. But I’ll have to admit it was hard to pull that lever.
My company is located in Charlotte. We are expanding. We need more people but can’t hire until the building expansion is finished.
And they are right. By and large this area has been spared.
I know for a fact you're up close & personal on this subject; nevertheless, pray tell, WTH the snowbirds think they're going?
I mean one has to live somewhere, right?
Well they are like geese. They fly to the next job pond or corn field if they can find one. If not, they return to the mother nest somewhere to roost off the family.
I half entertain the idea of going back up there and getting a job when things supposedly get better.
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