--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> On Dec 11, 2007, at 8:44 PM, Bob Morris wrote:
>
> > I also think they are seriously worried about
> what's coming.
>
> If they are, they're disguising it well.
[WS:] I dunno. I think that there is a lot to be worry ahead, but that worry is unevenly distributed. It will affect some places much more seriously than other.
For example, Baltimore benefited quite a bit from the housing boom elsewhere, because overinflated values of real estate in the DC area suddenly made Baltimore attractive to many professional workers (such as teachers, government employees, etc.) who could not afford living where they work (i.e. in DC). That spurred new construction and a lot of new hope in Baltimore.
With the crisis looming, many of those new construction projects have already been halted or went on sale - judging from casual observation - and other will likely follow. In my neighborhood alone, one large mixed use project (housing + retail) has been altogether abandoned and the site went on sale, and another - smaller one (just housing) did not fare very well - only a couple of units sold, rest of it is still "under construction." That is likely to have a domino effect on other development that was supposed to follow in this area.
So while the current crisis is unlikely to "bring capitalism down" (which was the hope of fools anyway) it will have very unpleasant consequences for some places, like Baltimore & similar urban places. It is serious, because foreclosing a couple of McMansions in the ex-urban sticks will affect mainly the owners and their banks, and will have a negligible neighborhood effect, because there is not much of a neighborhood there anyway. But the "domino effect" of housing market collapse on struggling urban environment will likely be very serious.
And this is something to worry about - unless one is foolish and dogmatic enough to settle for nothing less than a complete "destruction of capitalism" whatever that means.
Wojtek
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