Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Tent Cities in the USA Due to Foreclosures

Tent Cities in the USA Due to Foreclosures. Hat tip to The Mess That Greenspan Made

12 comments:

  1. If you lose your McMansion, you can just rent an apartment for cheaper. You can even save up money by not making payments during the forclosure process. The problem with these people is that they are jobless.

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  2. Ever heard of renting?!? This is absurd. Drama queens.

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  3. stupid is as stupid does.

    they belong in the tents

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  4. Boy am I glad I got into a bidding war with those folks when I bought my last house.

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  5. I just wanted to thank you for making such a great blog. I just purched my first home on capitol hill (www.dcrowhouse.blogspot.com) and feel well informed about the market reading through your posts.

    Thanks!

    Ben

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  6. I guess it's better to own your own tent than rent an apartment. Ha!

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  7. This comes from Marketwatch:

    Dominion Homes Shares To Be Delisted From Nasdaq

    Dominion Homes Inc. (DHOM) said it received notice from Nasdaq that its shares will be delisted at the opening of business March 31 since the company failed to regain compliance with minimum market value requirements. Dominion doesn't plan to appeal the decision and will seek a listing on the over-the-counter Bulletin Board. The Dublin, Ohio, home builder also said its most recent annual report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission included a going concern note from the company's auditors.


    By the way, you can buy the shares for only 55¢ each.

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  8. is anybody else spotting the obviouse trolling going on?


    or is it just me?

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  9. thestar.com

    the suburbs' grim future
    March 22, 2008
    Poverty is one thing in the city, quite another in the suburbs.

    Historically, cities enabled the poor to work their way up the socio-economic ladder. But what happens when low-income families are concentrated in post-war suburban communities where they are isolated and kept apart?

    The prospects don't look good.

    "If you were poor in Cabbagetown you had access to an enormous number of services," says David Hulchanski of the University of Toronto Centre for Urban and Community Studies.

    "If you're poor in the suburbs, it's a constant struggle just to survive."

    But as everyone knows, Cabbagetown, and other old inner-city neighbourhoods long associated with low-income earners, are being gentrified at a fast and furious rate. At the same time, those post-war suburban subdivisions built as enclaves for the upwardly-mobile, married-with-children set are now falling on hard times.

    "What's become clear," says Hulchanski, "is that people with a choice don't want to live in suburbs built in the 1950s and `60s. These have been deemed undesirable and left to those people who have no choice, many of whom are immigrants."

    In a report published last December, Hulchanski used census data gathered between 1970 and 2000. He calls the findings, "surprising and disturbing."

    "Neighbourhoods within which the average income...increased by more than 20 per cent...are generally located near the centre of the city and close to the city's two subway lines. This area includes some of the waterfront, much of the area south of Bloor St. and Danforth Ave....and in central Etobicoke.

    "Neighbourhoods within which the average income...decreased...are mainly located in the northern half of the city outside the central corridor along Yonge St. and the Yonge St. subway."

    These trends, Hulchanski argues are, "Surprising, because 30 years is not a long time. Disturbing, because of the concentration of wealth and poverty that is emerging."

    Paramount among the lessons to be learned is the importance of urban flexibility. Hulchanski quotes an earlier study done in the 1970s called, "Metro's Suburbs in Transition."

    "The post-war suburb," it states, "assumed one set of family conditions for child-rearing and the physical environment incorporated these assumptions."

    But, as the report went on, "The prototype suburban family – father in the labour force, mother at home full time, ownership of a ground-level home with private open space, two to four children, homogeneous neighbours – is no longer the dominant reality of suburban life."

    Though this phenomenon has yet to be fully played out, it's clear that traditional city virtues of proximity, connectedness and diversity, not to mention public transit, lead to better living conditions and opportunities for the poor than the archetypal suburban qualities of separation by use and distance.

    The successful city, varied and adaptable, can be reinvented and recycled over and over again by successive generations. But can the same be said of an environment designed for homogeneity?

    The answer to that question is the key to Toronto's future.

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  10. My friend is in one of these camps he's not lazy or stupid! He ran a successful carpet cleaning business for almost 20 years. Last year his service calls dropped to a few a week then to nothing. Before he closed up shop he told me he got as many calls from people looking for work as from people wanting their carpet cleaned.
    I hope some of you ARROGANT SCUM lose your jobs and get to see how easy it is to go rent when no one is hiring.

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  11. "My friend is in one of these camps he's not lazy or stupid!"

    If he's your friend, why aren't you helping him by lending him a hand...give him a corner of your house to sleep in, help him find work, anything. What the hell kind of "friend" are you, anyway?

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