It is, but one of the things they are doing in their regentrification efforts include going into primarily minority neighborhoods and buying homes from folks that have been there for 50+ years. These people worked and worked and worked and paid off their homes and raised their families in these homes. That doesn't lend itself to equity value, but because the surrounding neighborhoods are bad and the economy is totally shit, they are barely being offered more than what they paid for the home in the 1960's. And just off the horizon, less than two miles from these homes, are very large McMansions being built. With HOAs that will pay premium monies for otherwise city-utilized services such as snow removal and quite possibly garbage removal.

Yeah, they're trying to shrink the city by "encouraging" people to move elsewhere by stopping public services to various neighbourhoods. And then once they clear a neighbourhood, they tear it down.

Yeah, they're trying to shrink the city by "encouraging" people to move elsewhere by stopping public services to various neighbourhoods. And then once they clear a neighbourhood, they tear it down.

So the same subtext behind efforts to shrink the footprint in New Orleans after Katrina - a minority relocation program.

Ugh, so it's kinda what I thought. Creepy.

What brought this up was that we were looking on Google Maps and noticed that there are some neighborhoods in LA that look like they are doing something similar. Blocks and blocks where most of the houses have been torn down, with a house here and there between the empty lots.

I don't know if this is related, but there's a movement to shrink the size of Detroit's footprint so that it can have tight, but workable/vital urban core. So they're tearing stuff down.

There are about a kabillion houses for sale (according to zillow) for a couple of thousands of dollars, but they have some note about the buyer having to disclose. I am assuming it is about the shrinking footprint.

ETA: I can totally imagine them doing it here in Rochester as well. The property listings I show you guys for 50,000 aren't even in the bad neighborhoods!

How A 21-Year-Old Design Student's Sleeping-Bag Coat Could Break The Cycle Of Homelessness:

This is my story about the humanitarian project called The Empowerment Plan. Meet the re-designed coat: Element S. It is self-heated, waterproof, and transforms into a sleeping bag at night. It is made by a group of homeless women who are paid minimum wage, fed and housed while creating these coats made for those living on the streets. The focus is on the humanitarian system to create jobs for those that desire them and coats for those that need them at no cost. The goal is to empower, employ, educate, and instill pride. The importance is not with the product but with the people.

That looks like a very cool project, P-C!

Massive thunderstorm prevented me from repotting a plant, but it was a cool storm! And we so needed the rain. And my roof didn't leak and it was a lot like the storm where it did.

Lazy day, just swam, vacuumed the first floor and mopped the kitchen. Then went out and got the bucket and trellis for the jasmine, fed my neighbors' cats. One of them is in high dudgeon over my visits. I come in the door, Pooch greets me enthusiastically (and smells my feet, since the other neighbor cat has rubbed all over my toes) and KittyBoy comes running up, high pitched meows (he's a huge orange tabby.) I get two head scritches in and then he glares. Hisses. And turns around and plops down facing away from me. Any time I am in front of him, he hisses. And turns around. So funny. When I went to feed them, he hisses the whole time and presents his backside, no matter how awkward. And yet follows me from room to room, pulling this routine. Such a drama queen. It reminds me so freaking much of my 4 year old nephew's temper tantrums.

These people worked and worked and worked and paid off their homes and raised their families in these homes. That doesn't lend itself to equity value, but because the surrounding neighborhoods are bad and the economy is totally shit, they are barely being offered more than what they paid for the home in the 1960's.

This was a huge issue in insurance for post-Katrina rebuilding in the 9th ward especially. In the Lower Ninth, the percentage of homeowners in that neighborhood was the highest in the city, flat out (something like 93%). Not highest percentage of black homeowners or any qualifications like that. The storm came and they couldn't rebuild because the amounts they got were based on the home value, and it was low given the size of the house, the size of the lot, the property value of the neighborhood in general.

Another issue was that many of these houses were passed down from parent to child- and since they were fully paid for long ago, since most folks couldn't produce the deed (obvs) and they didn't change it in city hall (or city hall botched it, who knows) these homeowners had no right of return.

Seriously, New Orleans is textbook case of urban institutionalized racism, as is Detroit. (hopefully not too off-topic!)

So, I was watching Torchwood with some friends at my upstairs neighbor's place, and there was this crash that was so loud it knocked her door open. We all went outside to see that part of a tree had fallen down, bouncing off the building's gutter to land on my car.

[link]

No one was hurt, and I have insurance, so I'm going to chalk this up to one of those life experience things.