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Aerial Footage: Portrait of a Housing Bust (Paging Erich von Daniken)
Ritholtz.com ^ | October 3rd, 2010 | Barry Ritholtz

Posted on 10/07/2010 12:11:32 PM PDT by SeeSharp

Fantastic set of aerial photos from Google Images (by way of Boston.com’s Big Picture), showing Florida’s developmental disaster.

The images of half finished (and barely started) developments are strangely beautiful, with a geometric symmetry that belies the state of human misery these developments represent: Lost deposits, bankruptcy, misallocated capital.

That an entire nation can be so innumerate as to believe in a mathematical fallacy is weirdly fascinating . . .













TOPICS: Business/Economy; Society
KEYWORDS: housingbustaerial
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Now we knoe what happened to those Peruvian space aliens. They ran out of money.
1 posted on 10/07/2010 12:11:36 PM PDT by SeeSharp
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To: SeeSharp

Great comment!


2 posted on 10/07/2010 12:16:35 PM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel (Obama makes me miss Jimmah Cahtah!)
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To: SeeSharp

Many of these look like semiconductor chip layouts.


3 posted on 10/07/2010 12:20:44 PM PDT by MichaelNewton
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To: MIchaelTArchangel
Arizona shows tens of thousands of acres of similar tracings.

For the most part the developers forgot to obtain access to water first!

4 posted on 10/07/2010 12:20:44 PM PDT by muawiyah ("GIT OUT THE WAY" The Republicans are coming)
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To: SeeSharp

Looks like a great place to run!


5 posted on 10/07/2010 12:21:16 PM PDT by TSgt (Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho - 44th and current President of the United States)
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To: SeeSharp

So what is this — evidence for unintelligent life on Earth?


6 posted on 10/07/2010 12:22:23 PM PDT by Cincinatus (Omnia relinquit servare Rempublicam)
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To: SeeSharp

Beautiful pics. Bump for later.....C


7 posted on 10/07/2010 12:29:06 PM PDT by colinhester
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To: SeeSharp
Not to pick on your thesis, but there have been spots like this in Florida for decades. I used to fly in and out of the state a lot back in the 70s and 80s and I saw dozens of them. Why the developments stopped after site improvement, I don't know, but I do know it is nothing new.
8 posted on 10/07/2010 12:29:06 PM PDT by Ditto (Nov 2, 2010 -- Time to Clean House.)
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To: SeeSharp

I think an enterprising businessman could make some money leasing/renting these abandoned developments (when possible) and staging road/rally races on the property.

It would also be a nice way to build a motorsports park on the cheap.


9 posted on 10/07/2010 12:32:11 PM PDT by Spike Knotts
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To: SeeSharp

The third picture from the top is not real-estate development. It is a sod grass farm (we have a lot of those down hear and they look really neat from the air). You can see the irrigation channels going North to South.....

Also, one of the photo’s looks like the large real-estate developent in Palm Bay that went bankrupt in the 70’s due to embezzlement - thousands of acres of land cut up into quarter acre lots by the GDC (General Development Corp). Now there are just a few houses because most of the development was sold for investments and the lots are owned by people all over the world - though now they are just full of weeds and broken pavement....


10 posted on 10/07/2010 12:34:48 PM PDT by SC_Native (Ex resident of SC, GA, VA, NC. Current resident of FL.)
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To: Ditto
I have to agree with Ditto here. I went to college in Florida in the late 70’s to early 80’s.

We would find developments like this and have large bonfire parties out in the wilderness.

11 posted on 10/07/2010 12:36:44 PM PDT by OneRatToGo
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To: SeeSharp

One weird feature is how many dead ends they have. In Massachusetts (in new developments, anyway) a dead end is not supposed to extend more than a quarter a mile, in order to assure emergency vehicle assess in case of a road is blocked. Some of these seem to be vulnerable to “single point failure”.

In other words no blockage is supposed to isolate any point more than a quarter of a mile away.


12 posted on 10/07/2010 12:37:11 PM PDT by Lonesome in Massachussets (The naked casuistry of the high priests of Warmism would make a Jesuit blush.)
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To: SeeSharp

Von Daniken, LOL. I read his goofy books in college. The first one was pretty entertaining, but they got progressively crazier until I lost interest.

As for those failed developments, they look like a terrible place to live.


13 posted on 10/07/2010 12:38:39 PM PDT by ozzymandus
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To: SeeSharp

You beat me to it. The Nazca Lines were the first thing I thought of, too.


14 posted on 10/07/2010 12:38:44 PM PDT by Argus
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To: SeeSharp

The ancient drawings of the Defunct Democrat tribe led by Dodd and Frank...


15 posted on 10/07/2010 12:40:00 PM PDT by kittymyrib
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To: SeeSharp

This makes me think of an area right by the freeway off-ramp near my home (if you went straight off the offramp instead of turning left or right, you drove right into it).

It used to be an interesting little dead-end, two-block street. Lots of shade (big trees) and small, relatively older houses. You could tell it was a real community—kids always playing outside and a couple of those homemade “drive slowly, kids playing” signs.

Then one day the houses were all gone and in their place was a dirt lot. About a week later there was a big, beautiful fence along the main street that runs past it, with some impressive sounding name for the development (Shady Oaks or something like that—ironic since they’d taken out all the trees).

That was about three years ago and guess what? It’s still a dirt lot with a big, beautiful fence. I think a few letters from the impressive sounding name sign have dropped off or been taken.

Boy do I miss those lovely little houses, big trees, and kids playing. Lost a nice, little neighborhood and gained a dirt lot.


16 posted on 10/07/2010 12:42:11 PM PDT by The4thHorseman
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To: Ditto

Waaay before 1970

The Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act of 1968 (ILSFDA or ILSA) was put in place due to land scams in UT and AZ.


17 posted on 10/07/2010 1:06:12 PM PDT by ASOC (What are you doing now that Mexico has become OUR Chechnya?)
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To: OneRatToGo

Find some photos of cape coral (next to ft.myers) from the early seventies.

They used to fly hundreds of people down from new england for a free weekend in the sun.

Sell them a quarter acre lot. Dollar down, dollar a week.

Hundreds of square miles of streets and canals. The asphalt was one inch thick. The canals were three feet deep.


18 posted on 10/07/2010 1:24:13 PM PDT by maine yankee
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To: Spike Knotts
and staging road/rally races on the property.

Looks like someone's already started the fun. Look in the lower-left corner of the first photo.

Incidentally, there is a 55-and-over development near my local airport that has been 10% complete for 10 years. I used to off-road on the property, then a developer bought it and ran all the roads and utitlities.

The 10% that built realized they got a good deal on a home adjacent to an airport. They tried to get the airport shut down, but ended up merely creating publicity for their situation. As a consequence, none of the other lots sold. The lots are all dirt and weeds, with a handful of elderly people stuck in their homes.
19 posted on 10/07/2010 1:43:53 PM PDT by ConservativeWarrior (In last year's nests, there are no birds this year.)
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To: MichaelNewton
"Many of these look like semiconductor chip layouts."

I thought the same thing.

20 posted on 10/07/2010 1:47:03 PM PDT by VR-21
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