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- Bulldozing brand new suburbs. Amazing video of brand new suburban homes being razed, as lenders find it's cheaper to destroy out-of-vogue ex-urban communities than to keep them on the books.
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This news story has 21 comments:
Someone forgot to study supply and demand....
There are young people and low income people who work and who live crammed into little apartments, little run-down houses, shabby trailers, in their cars because they can't afford something better. They and their children will not be able to better themselves with education because they will have to pay so much just for shelter.
Bulldozing perfectly good housing guarantees the serfdom of an entire generation, an entire income bracket.
All the while, as taxpayers, we are all still doling out trillions to the bankers who created this bubble.
Warped and disgusting.
It's too bad they couldn't have just donated them to an outfit like Habitat for Humanity and let them finish building the houses. It's a shame any way you look it, no matter who's responsible.
First these were the models. They were build and the rest of the sub division never was when the developer pulled the plug. Vandals and thieves then came in and stole every last bit of anything valuable. (victorville is kinda a hole)
So rather than leave a few homes in the middle of an undeveopled area for transients and miscreants to set up a meth lab in they tore it down.
But it sure makes for a good headline.
On May 11 07:01 PM Market Sniper wrote:
> Moral hazard, McHattie, not that that means much anymore. I bought
> and paid for my home, suspect you did as well. Should we hand a McMansion
> to someone whose life ambition is to live in a trailer park? Might
> be humane but also might be wrong.
On May 11 06:48 PM D. McHattie wrote:
> This is morally indefensible. This shows how morally bankrupt this
> nation has become.
>
> There are young people and low income people who work and who live
> crammed into little apartments, little run-down houses, shabby trailers,
> in their cars because they can't afford something better. They and
> their children will not be able to better themselves with education
> because they will have to pay so much just for shelter.
>
> Bulldozing perfectly good housing guarantees the serfdom of an entire
> generation, an entire income bracket.
>
> All the while, as taxpayers, we are all still doling out trillions
> to the bankers who created this bubble.
>
> Warped and disgusting.
On May 11 06:48 PM D. McHattie wrote:
> This is morally indefensible. This shows how morally bankrupt this
> nation has become.
>
> There are young people and low income people who work and who live
> crammed into little apartments, little run-down houses, shabby trailers,
> in their cars because they can't afford something better. They and
> their children will not be able to better themselves with education
> because they will have to pay so much just for shelter.
>
> Bulldozing perfectly good housing guarantees the serfdom of an entire
> generation, an entire income bracket.
>
> All the while, as taxpayers, we are all still doling out trillions
> to the bankers who created this bubble.
>
> Warped and disgusting.
On May 11 08:47 PM anarchist wrote:
> Exactly Market Sniper, we should make those houses available in
> some way to the less fortunate. I bought and paid for a lot of houses
> in the past but I am not so callous as to stereotype people as "someone
> whose life ambition is to live in a trailer park". I think that
> for the grace of a lot of luck and a supportive family when I was
> a kid that could be me.
/good drugs
On May 11 10:55 PM PCScipio wrote:
> "You bought and paid for a home? How else would you buy a home besides
> paying for it?" !!!!!!!!!!!!! Cetin, where the hell have you been!!
One more try, although I doubt it will take....
The city was threatening to impose hefty fines if the homes were not brought up to code and maintained.. Since the sewer system roads and street lights and more for that planned community were not complete, and there was nobody willing to pay for all of that, nobody would be allowed to live there for years. Maybe 10 years or more-- nobody knows. There were only a couple of homes that had been built, and no new ones were going up in an area that has been devastated by the housing collapse. So, facing big fines,and rather than spend a couple million dollars to develop the community, they were torn down. They were already in bad shape, due to vandals.
Nobody -- not homeless or poor or anybody else-- would be allowed to live there until all of the improvements were completed.
But to those for whom a little knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing, you have decided that you are right , regardless of the facts, and as you always do, you troll through the comments section and click the thumbs down because the facts don't agree with your agenda.
The SA comments section has taken a real turn for the worse because of the agenda of a few. And I can assure you, their agenda has nothing to do with facts.
1. It's a criminal waste to destroy housing stock when there are so many needy people who could reside in it.
2. External circumstances (legal, government, location, etc.) made it impossible for these houses to be lived in, and giving them to people who couldn't take care of them wouldn't do a darned bit of good in the long run.
There is something to be said for both positions. I wasn't expressing moral outrage earlier when I said it was a shame that it happened, but I can understand why it happened and I'm not pointing fingers at anyone.
I also understand that giving things to people who can't afford them or take care of them doesn't do them any favors either.
Right now there is too much housing, and vacant housing is a wasting asset due to vandalism, squatting, etc. A few years from now this will NOT be the case and these houses would be desirable again. That being said, I understand why the builders cannot wait that long, they are doing what is best for their short term financial position.
Being a homeowner if I were just speaking for my own short-term interests I should be cheering the developers on, because when the pendulum swings the other way it will make my property that much more valuable when the inevitable shortage develops. But there's enough bleeding heart liberal in me to feel that I'd rather live in a society where the maximum amount of people can experience the benefits of home ownership. Given a choice I would sure as heck rather live in a neighborhood filled with home owners than home renters (I've lived in both) because there is a vast difference in the way the properties and the neighborhoods are kept up.
Alan Greenspan and his excessively low rates is not a free market.
Barney Franks putting a politician in charge of FNMA is not a free market.
Congress passing dozens of tax breaks and subsidies to encourage housing development is not a free market.
Zoning laws have been relaxed everywhere to encourage more housing -- and more property taxes. Zoning laws are not a free market.
And only a government bureaucrat would suggest keeping houses for which their is no economic buyer.
On May 11 07:34 PM Between The Numbers wrote:
> This, to me, is a failure of markets. There has to be someone, somewhere,
> who would purchase these houses for a number greater than the cost
> to operate a bulldozer. The local regulators were fining and threatening
> the banks for owning incomplete under-code housing, yet not giving
> them a way to work out the negative cashflow situation and sell them.
> A liquidity crunch of houses in Southern California, where an asset
> was destroyed rather than sold. Go to the discount window, get the
> cash needed to fix them, get them sold at pennies on the dollar,
> repay govt and all is well. It would have been in everyone's interest
> to find a way to get them sold, fixed, and not knocked down.