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Is America’s suburban dream collapsing into a nightmare?
Lara Farrar, CNN
… Devastated by the subprime mortgage crisis, hundreds of homes have been foreclosed and thousands of residents have been forced to move, leaving in their wake a not-so-pleasant path of empty houses, unkempt lawns, vacant strip malls, graffiti-sprayed desolate sidewalks and even increased crime.
… While the foreclosure epidemic has left communities across the United States overrun with unoccupied houses and overgrown grass, underneath the chaos another trend is quietly emerging that, over the next several decades, could change the face of suburban American life as we know it.
This trend, according to Christopher Leinberger, an urban planning professor at the University of Michigan and visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, stems not only from changing demographics but also from a major shift in the way an increasing number of Americans — especially younger generations — want to live and work.
“The American dream is absolutely changing,” he told CNN.
This change can be witnessed in places like Atlanta, Georgia, Detroit, Michigan, and Dallas, Texas, said Leinberger, where once rundown downtowns are being revitalized by well-educated, young professionals who have no desire to live in a detached single family home typical of a suburbia where life is often centered around long commutes and cars.
Instead, they are looking for what Leinberger calls “walkable urbanism” — both small communities and big cities characterized by efficient mass transit systems and high density developments enabling residents to walk virtually everywhere for everything — from home to work to restaurants to movie theaters.
(17 June 2008)
Renters wary of meters
Laurie Monsebraaten, The Star
Critics fear landlords will use `smart meter’ system to off-load power costs onto poor
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Etobicoke apartment dweller John Kim and his family want to help Ontario conserve energy.
But he’s worried renters with modest and low incomes may end up paying dearly because provincial conservation policies – like installing so-called “smart meters” to encourage people to shift their electricity use to off-peak hours – don’t protect the poor.
Although the smart-meter policy is not yet mandatory, Kim’s landlord at 5 Capri Rd. is already installing the devices and asking tenants to voluntarily switch in exchange for rent reductions.
(17 June 2008)
Real human casualties of the mortgage massacre
Carolyn Baker & Melissa Taylor, Speaking Truth to Power
[Truth To Power brings you this exclusive report from Northern California–one family’s true saga of a bursting housing bubble, the corporate corruption that engendered it, and the painful reverberations through their lives–CB]
… The Taylor family and their neighbors all had the same exotic Adjustable Rate Mortgage (ARM) loans and were trying to get out of them. The exotic loan that they were told was “hard to get” was suddenly all over the daily news. We now know that the loans were sold in the hedge fund markets around the world, and the borrowers’ losses affected the economy globally while brokers were given large bonuses to promote these loans and made huge profits off of exotic loans versus conventional loans. The Taylors realized they were in trouble, lots of trouble.
They were like many people who jumped into the rising housing market in recent years, except that they had a decent down payment, long-term employment, excellent credit, and what appeared to be enough money to cover both homes monthly if they lost their rental tenant. They had no debt except a student loan. They chose a loan that would hold their monthly payments down for the first year, then “reset” at a rate of 7 percent per year, but there was never an intention to keep the loan longer than one year. Their mortgage loan officer assured them that they would be able to refinance in a year to keep their payments affordable. Again they were told that they just needed to enjoy their new home and stop worrying.
They were caught up in the “American dream” along with millions of other families around the country. They were experienced homeowners. They earned over $ 70,000 a year each and had equity in their home.
Basically, the Taylors had a disaster on their hands. They had good jobs, health insurance and had relatively good health. However, over the course of five years, both partners at different times had major surgeries.
(16 June 2008)
A sign of the times in Bankruptsville, USA
Andrew Clark, The Guardian
Abandoned homes infest the dry hills of Vallejo, the broke city across the bay
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With a sun-drenched boardwalk just a short ferry ride across the bay from San Francisco, the former shipyard community of Vallejo ought to be buzzing. But it isn’t – the city has officially gone bust.
Pushed over a financial precipice by wider economic woes, Vallejo’s city authority has declared itself bankrupt. Its demise has triggered anger in a place that was once, for a fleeting few months in the 1850s, the capital of California.
Funding for police, firefighters, senior citizens, road maintenance, libraries and parks is up in the air until a bankruptcy judge has scoured the books. The city of 117,000 people is $17m (£8.7m) short of what it needs to pay the bills.
… Since [1996] Vallejo has prospered from a housing boom fuelled by commuters seeking affordable homes within reach of San Francisco.
For years, taxes and fees rolled in as developers speckled the city’s scorched hills with immaculate estates. The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States was a jolt. Homes in many estates lie empty because their owners could not afford loan repayments and, with lots of vacant homes, construction has halted. “There aren’t many housing starts so we aren’t getting the fees,” says council spokeswoman JoAnn West.
… John Quigley, a professor of economics at the University of California, says: “Vallejo may be extreme but other cities exhibit the same symptoms.”
(14 June 2008)
Oil prices fuel fury from the pulpit
Ronald D. White, Los Angeles Times
Some clergy question the car’s role in society as gasoline costs keep some of the faithful away from services.
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Record gasoline prices have been painful, but now they have begun to test the limits of faith.
In houses of worship nationwide, preachers are railing against the forces of energy evil, and congregations are praying for lower fuel prices.
So far, no results.
… The problem is affecting even the holy business, driving down attendance at churches, synagogues and mosques. Religious leaders are struggling to help their members cope, spinning new themes about a society that has become almost sinfully reliant on motorized transport. Others are viewing the energy-price squeeze as a test of the way they serve God and their communities.
… Fuel’s expense is cutting across cultural and religious beliefs.
At the Islamic Center of Southern California, it was common before the surge in gasoline prices to see people visit five times a day to find fellowship and pray.
Now, coordinator Ahmed Mohamed says, many people come “just two or three times a day and sometimes less. They can’t afford to drive here as often. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
(17 June 2008)
