The Subprime Mortgage Wasteland

Back when we were kids we used to read science fiction stories about nuclear wars and plagues turning whole cities into ghost towns.

Of course we did actually get to see a little bit of that at Chernobyl, but who would have thought something as simple as bad lending practices would lead to whole neighborhoods being abandoned?

Apparently there is a suburb of Cleveland called Shaker Heights that has largely been evacuated due to the sub-prime mortgage crisis.

This story goes on about squatters all over the place, a nearly abandoned grocery store, one last resident about to get thrown out due to a botched 2003 refinancing.

It sounds like those old science fiction stories.

Or The Depression.

Or worse.

It's not QUITE so bad around here.

Yet.

But you do see a disturbing number of abandoned older houses while driving around.

Seems that the banks are holding on to them in the hopes that the real estate market will recover.

I wonder what happens if it doesn't - if the banks for forced to write down a trillion dollars worth of property.

Perhaps that all-out nuclear war would have been a more preferable fate after all ...