So Big Blue and lots of other number-inclined bloggers have been telling us all about the housing market crash, or I guess I should call it “multiple markets crash” because it’s affected banks, Wall Street, insurance and credit card companies, and a whole lot more. Been to Home Depot lately? So many looking so suicidal. I came across a term I didn’t know, and so I went off and did a little casual reading about “undevelopment.” Now, before I say anything, read this:
When I was a child I went to school in Kalemie. It was a great honour for one from our village to go to the big town and I was chosen because I was the son of the chief. My family walked with me through the forest to the place not far from here where the bus passed. I will never forget that first bus journey.” He fell silent for a moment, staring into the fire.
“I was still at school when independence came in 1960, and in Kalemie I remember almost all of the white families fled across the lake because they were scared. I came home and since then I think I have been to Kalemie maybe two times.“Our village here, the one you are sitting in, used to have cars come through it every few days. Just a few kilometres away is one of those guest houses the Belgians built. They called them gites and they were always open for travellers coming through by car. But all of that went with the fighting.
“Now when we hear the fighting coming our way, my people and I just flee into the bush. We have learned it is the safest place for us. We know how to survive there. And when we come back, our village is almost always destroyed and we have to build it again.
“Over the years, things have got worse and worse. We have lost the things we once had. Apart from what we can carry into the bush, we have nothing. I think the last time I saw a vehicle near here was 1985, but I cannot be sure. All these children you see around you are staring because I have told them about cars and motorbikes that I saw as a child, but they have never seen one before you arrived.”
Sobering, eh? Let’s not say, “it can’t happen here,” and continue to believe that our Saudi and Chinese masters will give a fuck about sustaining an above-third world consumer market here. That’s debatable. What’s not debatable: global climate change and the impending end of our energy/economic model associated with it, means we need to think Big, and Dream Big. Or live in caves huddled around the Artic coast line. Whatever.
Anyway, I think of all those photos the A-Man linked to the other day at the SacRealEstate blog. Warning: Not Safe for Dialup! Pic after pic after pic…that’s a lot of ’retail space’ that’s going to sit empty. So what is to be done about it?
I put up the bit about Africa because people can so easily (and through the goggles of racism) imagine how those ignorant savages over there can not maintain good roads the nice white folk built for them. But you know, roads cost money. Keeping buildings from falling down and turning into boarded over burnouts is harder than you may think, and takes not only money but managment. I’m looking at this explosion that is today’s real estate reality, and I don’t see the combination of political will, credit/financing, or general comprehension of ’the problem’ to deal with it adequately. I feel that a lot of regions and ’hoods could deteriorate very quickly. My family comes from Detroit, so, you know…
Progressives are going to have to take the battle to the local level, and fight it out with the developers who corrupt the local zoning process. I’ve seen it up close, they really do force their will on a community, despite having the whole community turn out to say, “stop the overdevelopment madness!” With lots of expensive lawyers in suits who overwhelm community organizers’ lack of expertise on the finer points of the law, or who lobby with provincial small potato local pols, who will sell out a whole county for a fancy hoor and steak dinner. It just happened yet again here in MI, where the state decided to rent/sell out some precious, pristine public land up north for mining “development.” Despite record-breaking, “no, no NO” turnout at public hearings before the deal was made.
Anyway, I’m ranting here and that’s not what I meant to do. Only: what do you imagine we should do with this space? Demoliton? Environmental re-greening? Convert it to biofuel and alt energy production? Playgrounds? Parks? Housing for the poor? Factories?
We’re the Overton window pushers, and the time is ripe for us on this issue. It won’t be but a few years before some start looking at all that “empty space” and decide to market the next big scam on how to “get rich off it.” We’ll have to be there not only to remind them of what happened the last time that was allowed to happen, but also what alternatives are required as communities are increasingly left to support “civilization” for themselves. Because so long as the Financial Overclass can party in London and Shanghai and Dubai and New York, the rest of us are just jungle villagers, yo. Or you’ll be grateful for that job as Assistant Gilly on Bandar’s Midwestern Hunting Preserve, if you’re lucky enough to get it.
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Since you asked....
Great question.
Even when it’s working, the present development model (can only?) produce(s) a lot of crap. I have a few links/thoughts about how to change things, some or all could be old news to Corrente. Or maybe not really solutions.
Our Energy Policy is driven by a cancerous political ideology, hopefully that will change and let some of the stuff below take off. I think green technology could combine with stronger community groups to solve a few of the problems.
Some ideas on what to do with the space:
There are several prototype plans to reclaim brownfield space in cities. The City of Chicago has set up the Center for Green Technology in a old reclaimed factory. The programs they have are underfunded and for the most part unused by the large majority of residents. It’s a start.
Similarly there’s the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which has some underfunded, but possible, solutions.
Getting outside the Chicago city limits, there’s the Rocky Mountain Institute. Full of brilliant ideas.
Jerome a Paris is a french energy banker who writes about energy policy at the European Tribune. Their think tank is focused on European solutions to the energy problem. Because Europe has taken campaign contributions out of the equation, the ideas that the ET think tank came up with could apply to a hypothetical America where money didn’t matter so much. They also came up with a comprehensive Energize America plan that, I think, was adopted wholesale by a few of the Dem ex-presidential candidates.
A way to build things at a local level is through community gardens. I’m not a gardener, but have turned into one, seeing them, among other things, as a way to prod my neighbors into acting on local issues.
I’ve plugged them here before. I think the idea of container gardening in the city is one way to go. The City of Montreal is working with McGill University to build urban gardens on a larger scale.
One thing all these links have in common is that they are relatively unfunded/powerless actors in the current scheme. I hope that will change (h/t OFB
).
I want to redesign the mobile/modular home
And wouldn’t you know I—well, not *I* exactly, having no contacts with the firm, or the industry, nor clout of any sort, nor the engineering/materials purchasing knowledge needed, et shall we say cetera, but somebody—happens to have a unique opportunity in this regard.
I live in a mobile—oops, term is not PC in the business, must remember to say “manufactured—home. They come in standard widths, dictated by how wide of objects are allowed to be transported on highways, and a variety of lengths. But what they have is very consistent sizes of roofs which would seem to easily accomodate panels of various sorts.
There are solar panels which consist of hollow pipes and a black-painted background. These were around back during the Carter energy-crisis years and sold like crazy until the problem ’went away’ and the tax credit got dumped. They were sold as add-on heating units, not stand-alone heat systems; they would reduce the amount of gas/propane/electric or whatever your primary heat source was. Payback time on purchase price was then about 7 years but given how much energy has gone up since then i imagine it would be less now. Complications would involve a water wall or similar heat-storage device but this is a big help during the day even without such.
2-Solar panel like the above but with water pipes instead of hollow air tubes. Reduces water-heater usage. Not as durable since water leaks are less forgiving than air, but still good.
3-Photovoltaic. Expense considerably higher both for construction and for added complexities of wiring to feed surplus back into the grid with cutoff to avoid endangering utility workers in the event of grid outage/repairs. However this system avoids the need for storage on-premises with those ugly stacks of car batteries. Progress in battery technology should reduce this rapidly over coming years but we need a solution that can start now so the feedback it is.
But what I want is for Champion Enterprises to rebuild the factory that just burned down here, with these added features which, according to their website they do not currently feature in any of their houses either manufactured or modular.
All the advantages of manufactured homes come into play here: standardized components, economies of scale of same, the whole “green collar jobs” being plugged by all candidates at the moment (and which might be in some form available now, meaning the company could get some state help to add this feature and the accompanying jobs in an area that desperately needs them.)
There’s a story I’ve never seen written about the whole manufactured housing industry, the Katrina mess and what it did to these companies. The number of houses bought up by FEMA in its haste had to be a substantial proportion of the whole inventory produced that year. (And a large number of those have never been used and are now, thanks to lack of maintenance and improper storage, junk.) I know several companies went out of business around that time but details never seem to get mentioned, meaning I don’t know how the supply and demand situation sits at the moment.
There is not a damn thing wrong with a properly built, installed, and tied-down mobile home no matter how many jokes are made about them being “tornado magnets.” A tornado will tear up any structure in its path and most of the cases you hear of mass destruction of mobile homes are those in cheap-ass “parks” which are not properly tied down.
The day of the mcMansion is over. We can’t go off and live in the bush when war and raiders come through because we have neither the bush not the skills to live off it until the coast is clear. We do need decent affordable sustainable housing though, and this would be one way to get it.
thoughts welcome. If you happen to be a cousin of the president of Champion Homes and know his private email, you could drop it my way. :)
Ever read Snow Crash?
The one that starts out with Hiro Protagonist living in a shipping container at LAX?
Like that….
Actually, not sure on the “manufactured” part. We would want every part of the home to be recyclable, yes? Maybe even fixable locally….
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
The Powers will fight this
They will fight it with lawyers. They will fight it with paid cops. They will fight it with snob appeal and peer pressure. They will fight it in every major main$tream as long as the main$tream lasts.
The ultimate goal of those who would rule is neofeudalism. That means serfdom for most of humanity. Anti-corporate technology goes against the program.
Which is of course why we should embrace it.
Because the melting of the poles is pretty damned inevitable now, unless the powers toss up enough atmospheric debris in a nuclear conflagration to halt both insolation and the direction of the carbon balance.
In that event, post-corporate technology won’t just become economical, it will be only way civilization might survive.
No Hell below us
Above us, only sky
The Omega Man
Or maybe this is where we’ll end up.
Interesting site!
Cheesemaking.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Cheese
If you want to know more about cheesemaking, let me know. It’s something I do (have a herd of dairy goats, no lame jokes plz).
We have tried to ’get back to the land’ and live with as small a footprint as possible, but it’s quite difficult. It takes money, dedication and being really aware. We grow much of our own food, but, we still like bread, and can’t grow wheat here. Our animals still need food bought in. We need power, and can’t afford solar cells yet. Still, it’s a start.
Sima, cheesemaking??
If you wanted to write a series of guest posts on cheesemaking — for the reader who might not necessarily hav their own herd of goats — that would be great. FeralLiberal did a terrific series on winemaking.
I was going to start out very simple with butter and creamcheese. But you know how hard it can be to get started.
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
Lambert, on cheesemaking...
I’d be happy to do a series of posts. I’m new here (although not to blogging), I was drawn by your primary/election coverage and coverage of the issues and have stayed to learn more about all kinds of things.
Let me figure how how to post to the blog and I’ll get started, maybe a ’basics’ post this week?
Cheese, cool!
It’s not hard. You can always mail me or post comments asking how to do something. If you doubleclick the little blue triangle next to input formats, you’ll see the HTML options, but basically, two carriage returns make a paragraph, and HTML B, I, and BLOCKQUOTE tags cover 99% of all other needs…
[x] Any (D) in the general. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.