Empty Streets And Cul-De-Sacs In Florida

[Pole]

from Boston Globe:

A couple weeks ago, I was listening to a story by NPR's Planet Money team about "Toxie" a toxic asset they had purchased to follow and help tell the story of the recent financial meltdown. One of the mortgages in Toxie was on a home bought for investment in Bradenton, Florida, and the team took a look at housing in the area. Many homes there are empty and have been for years. Huge developments sit partially completed among densely built up neighborhoods and swampland. A guest stated that there were "enough housing lots in Charlotte County to last for more than 100 years". Boom and bust residential development has drastically affected parts of southwest Florida for decades now, and I spent some time (with the help of Google Earth), looking around the area. With permission from the fine folks at Google, here are a few glimpses at development in southwest Florida.

[Peter Hun]

I remember listening to that NPR podcast. The most concerning aspect was that many of those lots aren't even relics of this housing bust. Instead they hark back from either earlier booms in earlier decades or were simply investor traded speculative plots.

At least they are hurricane-proof.

[fuse]

I remember listening to that NPR podcast. The most concerning aspect was that many of those lots aren't even relics of this housing bust. Instead they hark back from either earlier booms in earlier decades or were simply investor traded speculative plots.

Was going to reply with exactly that comment, there are loads of these developments round in florida (i lived there for 5 years). They are a mix of Old ones from 10+ years ago and those that went up during the boom times more recently where fraudsters set up "developments" and sold the lots multiple times over and then dissappeared with the cash, usualy citing things such as water shortages and endanger species finds to stop them for actually having to build and con people longer. There are also others from the current bust which started in about 2002 over there.

[Tankus]

Its an art installation ...you muppet ....... a homage to the Nazca Lines ....you can see them from space ...... get with it

[Chest Rockwell]

I went to Fuerteventura last October and opted for a "Quad Bike Safari" and one of the "attractions" were roads/streets in the middle of the freakin desert...all complete with Zebra crossings, school corssings, tarmac roads, pavements, street lamps...but....no houses! The Quad bike tour bloke told us that construction came to a complete halt late 2007 early 2008! He also told us that sites like the one we saw are dotted all over the island!

I'd say more like all over the f*cking world!