Free Republic

Via Greg L. at BVBL, it looks as if the "For Lease" signs are already up in what is/was the Deeds campaign offices in Prince William County: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIl9Gia6er8&feature=player_embeddedUPDATE: The WashPo's Monday Labor Day edition does little to dispel the notion that Deeds is pulling out of PWC, citing his struggle "against anonymity in Northern Virginia" which has led him to a strategy of shoring up what should be his natural constituency in small towns. The amount of time Deeds spends in rural Virginia has also worried some Northern Virginia supporters, who say it would be a mistake to assume that...

While millions of American families struggle with falling house prices, soaring gasoline costs and tightening credit, some environmentalists, urban planners and urban real estate speculators are welcoming the bad news as signaling what they have long dreamed of -- the demise of suburbia. In a March Atlantic article, Christopher B. Leinberger, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor of urban planning, contended that yesterday's new suburbs will become "the slums" of tomorrow because high gas prices and the housing meltdown will force Americans back to the urban core. Leinberger is not alone. Other pundits, among them author...

You have heard of white flight. Now consider black flight Next month the Burning Bush Baptist Church will hold its first service in a converted Sears department store. When the church was founded, in 1995, it had a congregation of 12. About 750 now attend Sunday services, and more are joining all the time. One reason for the church's growth is the oratorical skill of David Denson, its pastor. Another is that Burning Bush is a mostly black church, and there are a lot more blacks around these days. Between 2000 and 2006 the black population of Victorville and Apple...

The rat race is turning into a marathon. Inside the lives of 'extreme commuters.' May 1, 2006 issue - At 5:40 a.m., the alarm blares news-talk radio and Bill Small rolls out of bed. With a two-hour commute ahead of him, the Chicago doctor wastes little time. He showers, dresses and is out the door by 6. At this hour, his car is the only one navigating the winding streets of his upscale neighborhood in St. Charles, Ill., a quaint community nearly 50 miles west of the Chicago hospital where he works. Small's routine is so finely tuned that he...

Nowhere land As US towns sprawl into the countryside, creating anonymous zones dominated by soulless malls, one of Britain's leading historians asks if it could happen here Tristram Hunt Sunday February 20, 2005 Observer Take a ride along the I-10 out of Phoenix, Arizona, and witness the birth of a new civilisation. Under the arching desert sky, cotton fields are being transformed into condominiums; cactus wilderness into master-planned communities. This year some 60,000 new homes will spread out along the valley landscape. Similar developments are underway across America: in Florida, ancient citrus groves are coming down for housing lots; in...

GOP on the Edge The Los Angeles Times notes an interesting trend in political demographics: In this month's election, President Bush carried 97 of the nation's 100 fastest-growing counties, most of them "exurban" communities that are rapidly transforming farmland into subdivisions and shopping malls on the periphery of major metropolitan areas. . . These growing areas, filled largely with younger families fleeing urban centers in search of affordable homes, are providing the GOP a foothold in blue Democratic-leaning states and solidifying the party's control over red Republican-leaning states. Many agree that in these high-growth communities, as in much of the...

Bush Sees Fertile Soil in 'Exurbia' GOP strategists believe they can win many new voters in outlying towns rich with conservatives. By Peter Wallsten, Times Staff Writer LEBANON, Ohio — Tom Grossman parks his blue convertible at a home expo center and walks through the maze of booths hawking the necessities of upscale living: home security systems, Jacuzzi tubs, fancy kitchen fixtures and wooden blinds. Then he settles into a booth of his own. But Grossman has not come to Chestnut Hill, one of southwestern Ohio's newest subdivisions, to peddle home furnishings. He has come to hunt new Republican voters....