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Suburbia R.I.P.
FastCompany.com via Yahoo! Finance ^ | March 12, 2009 | Michael Cannell

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 ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bho44; economy; landuse; mortgage; suburbia; suburbs
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This requires a mild barf alert, IMHO. All the symptoms described here, and the "solution" presented, are all part of a plan to get everyone jammed back into cities.

I'm sure we'll see more of this kind of agitprop in the coming days.

1 posted on 03/13/2009 8:07:51 PM PDT by Disambiguator
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To: Disambiguator

Thanks a lot, Liberalism.

Spread the pain around, not the wealth. That’s Liberalism.


2 posted on 03/13/2009 8:10:48 PM PDT by deannadurbin
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To: Disambiguator

Nothing short of millions of inconvenient people dying, along with their kids and their barbecues, will satisfy these PC freaks.


3 posted on 03/13/2009 8:13:31 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: Disambiguator

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.


4 posted on 03/13/2009 8:13:38 PM PDT by Birch T. Barlow (Loose lips sink ships.)
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Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: Disambiguator

Who writes this sh&*? Bet he NEVER even researched this nonsense...probably flows right out of his little mind.


6 posted on 03/13/2009 8:17:16 PM PDT by mo
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To: Disambiguator

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.


7 posted on 03/13/2009 8:17:50 PM PDT by LauraJean (sometimes I win sometimes I donate to the equine benevolent society)
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To: Disambiguator

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.


8 posted on 03/13/2009 8:21:05 PM PDT by keepitreal (Obama brings change: an international crisis (terrorism) within 6 months)
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To: Disambiguator

Blarney.


9 posted on 03/13/2009 8:29:09 PM PDT by Psycho_Bunny (ALSO SPRACH ZEROTHUSTRA)
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To: keepitreal

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.


10 posted on 03/13/2009 8:31:59 PM PDT by cfrels
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To: Disambiguator
I would gladly live in a half finished development and fight vandals daily than to live in the socialist hell hole of Philadelphia (or Detroit or...)
11 posted on 03/13/2009 8:34:29 PM PDT by 2banana (My common ground with terrorists - they want to die for islam and we want to kill them)
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To: keepitreal

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.


12 posted on 03/13/2009 8:34:40 PM PDT by yawningotter
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To: cfrels

You have never encountered a smaller mind than a city planner.


13 posted on 03/13/2009 8:36:17 PM PDT by ChadsDad (never post email.)
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To: Birch T. Barlow

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.


14 posted on 03/13/2009 8:37:38 PM PDT by FreedomPoster (Obama: Carter's only chance to avoid going down in history as the worst U.S. president ever.)
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To: Disambiguator
Mostly B.S. But I agree with this:

"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.

15 posted on 03/13/2009 8:39:16 PM PDT by BBell
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To: Disambiguator
New York is at a relative advantage, despite losing a chunk of its financial engine, because the jostling proximity of architects, fashion designers, software writers and other creative types will reenergize its economy.

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!

16 posted on 03/13/2009 8:39:49 PM PDT by ichabod1 (I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet (GOP Poet))
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To: Disambiguator

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.


17 posted on 03/13/2009 8:40:17 PM PDT by DB
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To: Disambiguator
"If Americans think they've been grifted by Goldman Sachs and Bernie Madoff, wait until they find out what a swindle the so-called 'American Dream' of suburban life turns out to be," he wrote on his blog this week.

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.

18 posted on 03/13/2009 8:40:30 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Disambiguator

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.


19 posted on 03/13/2009 8:42:43 PM PDT by goodnesswins (Conservative and fighting for freedom and liberty....whether you like it or not.)
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To: keepitreal

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.)


20 posted on 03/13/2009 8:42:46 PM PDT by ichabod1 (I am rolling over in my grave and I am not even dead yet (GOP Poet))
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