Connie, we've had a lot of "demolition by neglect" - buildings that can't be torn down because they're historical, so the owners refuse to maintain them until they have to be condemned. Unfortunately, as happened a while ago, they sometimes take neighboring buildings with them.

In this last instance, the owner's been required to do maintenance ... we'll see how that goes.

Aimee, I say fight that shit. Unemployment is probably just trying to get lots of people off cause they're out of money. And, if you owe it really, usually you get time to pay it back, though they'll probably charge interest.

We're totally fighting it. I'm writing to every state rep, senator, person who'll read an email I can. Looks like both Michigan WORKS! and the UIA fucked up. I forsee that in the end, we won't actually owe the money, but in the meantime, we are fucked for money. We depend on that unemployment for the ancillary things like FOOD. More than likely, beginning tomorrow, the state will start taking back the money to pay for what we "owe". Which totally sucks.

Joe will totally get a job - he's not a jackhole - but then it's finding daycare and playing catch up with bills. I feel bad he can't finish up his degree as quickly as we had hoped he would (he's 21 credits shy), but we need the income. I can't be the only money maker - I'll go postal.

For lovely schadenfreude, the two most recent incidents are a parking lot and a hole, respectively, because of the real estate market.

Sounds like what happened with Block 37 here in Chicago. Smack in the middle of the Loop, right across from the State Street Marshall Fields store, it was completely torn down in 1989, including a building that had its landmark status stripped so it could be torn down as well (it was thought to be the second oldest building in the Loop, dating back to 1872, right after The Fire). Being this happened in 1989, with the recession happening then, the planned real estate venture never occurred, and the block remained an empty spot in the middle of prime real estate territory until 2005.

Dallas is horrible about tearing down our history. My neighborhood is becoming a mini-mansion hell from the craftsman bungalow heaven it was when we moved there. Most streets looked like this [link] now they look like this [link]

Then there's this [link]

may your fight be short and quick, Aims

Aims, may you crush them like the crawling insects they are.

Aims, may you crush them like the crawling insects they are.

This.

Smite them, oh mighty smiter.

May they find themselves in a situation where they have to choose between paying for electricity and paying for food.

One night - or possibly day, no one seems to have seen it happen - the tree disappeared and the treebox was paved over.

That happened in Chicago, 'cept it was an airport. And it was mayor Daily who had it done.

Yep, in the middle of the night they ripped up an airport, without notifying any owners of planes that happened to be parked there that night.

My neighborhood has a trucking company that has slowly bought up several blocks' worth of properties for its big-ass inconvenient semis. Because of the way some of the streets are laid out, some are so untravelled that people unfamiliar with the neighborhood have wondered if those streets were alleys.

But no, they're actual city streets.

However, that doesn't stop the trucking company from pouring gravel all over those wee streets so that people won't drive down them and interrupt their trucking whatnot.

My favorite part? When people park --legally -- on those streets, the trucking company has them towed for parking on private property.

I am not making this up. They are, of course, being sued by a lot of people and (I think) the neighborhood's business association (not for the parking shenanigans, but for other stuff that they didn't bother to get permits to do).

We hatessssss them. Seriously. It's like this whole neighborhood-wide campaign of vitriol against this one jackhole trucking company. If the neighborhood weren't already close-knit, I think our unity in our hatred of the company would have done it.