OK, I will admit it.
I posted on this topic (See “Sub-Prime Lending and the Slums of Tomorrow” 21 Feb 2008) and committed a sin of which I have accused others. I posted without reading the Leinberger article in Atlantic “The Next Slum?”
Since Jim Bacon’s original post went into the archives, I downloaded the article and read it with some care. Jim is to be commended for taking Deena Fulchum’s tip and putting up a good post on what Leinberger had to say. There is more to be said, however.
Back to the core problem of Vocabulary.
The very first sentence indicates this is something new and beyond what our friends Bill Lucy and Dave Phillips have been documenting.
Further it is now showing up in the weekly listings of foreclosures here in the R=30 Miles to R=60 Miles Radius Band around the Centroid of the National Capital Subregion.
What Lienberger finds goes to the question that Groveton raised in the recent post on the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis about “wrong sized house in the wrong location.”
Leinberger makes a number of points that will skewer those 12 ½ Percenters who chafe at the idea that there is a difference between functional and dysfunctional settlement patterns and that the dysfunctional ones would be eliminated by a fair allocation of location-variable costs.
Leinberger leaves out a lot, after all it is a short article. For example who was the sponsor of Futurama at the 1939 Worlds Fair? (Hint: it was the Enterprise for whom it was said in the 50s that what was good for the Enterprise was good for the US of A.)
What about the impact of Frank Lloyd Wright in the illusion of the benefits of scatteration that still resonates with 12 ½ Percenters?
The list of other things to say is long but the points Leinberger makes are well worth reading and digesting.
Sorry I did not do it before the posting.
EMR