Empty houses taking toll on Valley

On a typical block in metro Phoenix, there's at least one empty home, often several. Overbuilding during the housing boom, record foreclosures during the subsequent crash and a significant drop in population growth have led to more than 100,000 vacant homes across the region, five times what was once considered normal. With an average of three people per residence, the swath of vacant homes is equivalent to a city bigger than Chandler sitting empty.
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This is deep in the heart of Privatopia.  These vacant homes demonstrate how excess leverage and irrational exuberance can decimate an entire industry, spurring overbuilding and creating tons of excess inventory by packing what would normally be 15 years of growth into five.  It's no wonder new home starts are at their lowest levels since the late 1940s.

Feathers fly

 

Feathers fly Saturday as Sacramento celebrates International Pillow Fight Day at Fremont Park. From Topeka, Kan., to Tunis, Tunisia, cities posted events on Facebook. It's part of the Urban Playground Movement, which aims to get people off the couch and into the urban living room. 
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This looks like it would be a great way to blow off steam in Privatopia.  But surely all of those feathers would violate some HOA rule.

HOA Wants To Ban Kids From Playing Outside - News Story - WFTV Orlando

HOA Wants To Ban Kids From Playing Outside - News Story - WFTV Orlando:
VOLUSIA COUNTY, Fla. -- A neighborhood homeowner's association in Volusia County is causing some controversy after it proposed banning kids from playing outside in their own yards.

Officials at the Persimmon Place subdivision in Edgewater are pushing a measure to ban kids from outdoor playing in the community, unless they have an adult with them at all times.
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It has become impossible to satirize HOAs. Every absurd and oppressive thing you can imagine has actually been done. Thanks to Rodney Gray for the link.

Las Vegas judge blocks foreclosure by HOA collection agency

Nevada Association Services (NAS) is at the center of legal and political battles over how much homeowners -- and investors in foreclosed homes -- should be required to pay for past-due HOA assessments, fines, fees and collection costs.

Several lawsuits are pending involving NAS and other collection agencies including a proposed class-action case in federal court in Las Vegas claiming NAS has violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and other counts.
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It seems that Steve Green of the Las Vegas Sun is well-informed on this issue.

Citation over front yard toilet planter dismissed

Flush with success, Terry told the Knoxville News Sentinel he might celebrate by flanking his driveway with two more commodes.
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Someone call the HOA.

Testy in Texas over HOAs

Calling associations “at least quasigovernmental,” Rep. Dwayne Bohac, R-Houston, said that “the scales are still tilted to HOA protections.”

And Rep. Helen Giddings, D-DeSoto, bemoaned a decade and a half of lawmaker discussions with little progress.

“This committee is really challenged,” said Giddings, the longest-serving member of the Business and Industry Committee. “The House could name a standing committee just to deal with HOA issues. That’s how many we have. And it seems like we just don’t move on.”
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Texas legislators according to this article from The Dallas Morning News are wrangling about 40 bills involving HOAs this session. Some are voicing frustration that HOA issues keep coming back year after year without meaningful resolution.

7 reasons why the mortgage crisis is dragging down the entire economy

Some dramatic charts that put the magnitude of this thing in perspective.

HOA tears down lost doggy signs

PHOENIX -- An adventurous Yorkshire terrier took off Tuesday morning, sending panic through the Malley family of Cave Creek.
They frantically placed posters around the neighborhood to help find Baby Boy, but said someone from the Tatum Ranch Homeowners Association started tearing them down because the posters were against HOA rules.
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What was the perfessor just saying about HOAs hanging "give us some bad publicity" kick me signs on themselves? Here's yet another example.

America's Foreclosure Ghost Towns

Huffington Post is asking for people to submit photos of the foreclosure crisis.

Kids' lemonade stand curtailed by their homeowners association

HOAs: the only institution in our society that makes its own "Kick Me!" sign and ties it around its own neck, week after week.

A Boom Behind Bars: Private jail operators like the Corrections Corporation of America are making millions off the crackdown on illegal aliens

The private prison system runs parallel to the U.S. prisons and currently accounts for nearly 10 percent of U.S. state and federal inmates, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those numbers rise and fall in response to specific policies, and CCA has been accused of lobbying for policies that would fill its cells—such as the increase in enforcement of regulations like the one that snagged Cardenas. Tougher policies have been good for CCA. Since the company started winning immigrant detention contracts in 2000, its stock has rebounded from about a dollar to $23.33, attracting investors such as William Ackman's Pershing Square Capital Management, which is now its largest shareholder.
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You always hear Republicans complaining about public employee unions. But look what happens when you privatize. The corporations who provide the privatized service get organized to influence the political process.

Now...where have we seen that happen before?

Lips Unsealed: Third Circuit Ruling on Privilege Worries Defense Bar

Lips Unsealed: Third Circuit Ruling on Privilege Worries Defense Bar: "Corporate executives may need to be more careful about what they say to outside counsel during internal company probes. And they'll want to make sure that the lawyers they talk to are representing them personally, and not just their company.

That’s the implication of a Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruling (link to pdf) on Wednesday in the case of Ian Norris, one-time CEO of the Morgan Crucible Co. in the United Kingdom."
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I'm wondering how this case might apply to employees or contractors for HOAs and condo associations who speak with the corporation's lawyer, where there are questions about improprieties...

Some residents not embracing roundabouts: Communities seeking safer intersections find resistance from those unfamiliar with the circular roadways

"I've never been on one in America," said Alice Zator, whose business sits at the planned roundabout site on Oak Park Avenue and 183rd Street. "My concern is, are there other options? Why would we do something that's not familiar to the Midwest?"
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This is funny. Roundabouts make left turns unnecessary. Left turns are dangerous and cause delay. Roundabouts are used all over the world. But here in the midwest, some people are freaked out at the idea. Apparently they envision being stuck in the middle, going around and around until they run out of gas.

Avoiding defamatory material in posts

I just deleted a couple of comments that would have been well worth reading except that the anonymous poster decided to include names of people and subdivisions along with the accusation of criminal behavior. If you want to talk about corruption, extortion, shakedowns, fraud, etc., in the CID industry, fine. That's an important topic. But please leave the identifying material out of it. I'm not going to expose myself to a libel suit so somebody who doesn't even dare to put their real name on their post can get a cheap thrill at my expense.

Las Vegas HOA collection agencies sue critics - Monday, March 21, 2011 | 5:09 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun

Las Vegas HOA collection agencies sue critics - Monday, March 21, 2011 | 5:09 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun: "New allegations of wrongdoing are flying pitting Las Vegas-area collection agencies for homeowner associations against homeowners and investors in foreclosed properties."

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Thanks to Cynthia Stephens for this link.

Detroit's population drops to lowest level in 100 years

Detroit's population dropped 25 percent over the last decade to its lowest level in a century, according to U.S. Census figures released on Tuesday. The city's population fell to 713,777 last year from 951,270 in 2000 when the last census was taken as the region suffered from a struggling automotive industry, plant closures and job losses. In the same period, the state of Michigan's population dropped 0.6 percent to 9.88 million.
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Chicago lost 7%, Cleveland 17%. But Detroit is back to the size it was before the creation of the automobile industry.

If we abolish HOAs and condos, what then?

I have a few questions for the HOA and condo abolitionists. I have been thinking about what a non-CID America would look like, and what the options are. I'm asking these questions seriously because I presume that those of you who want to abolish CIDs have given some serious thought to what that would entail.

I'm hoping to see something other than ALL CAPS RANTING and continued criticism of the status quo. We all know about the problems. I am interested in real solutions that could be implemented in the real world, and that go beyond the reform laws the abolitionists are always denouncing. Let's see something other than sanctimonious bombast, insults, and bomb-throwing, OK? I will delete all that stuff.

So--here are the questions:

1. If you could have your way right now and enact a law that would dissolve all existing HOAs, what would you do about the millions of homes that are now in HOAs? What would happen to the common areas? Who would own them, maintain them, and pay for their maintenance, and how would the money to do that be collected? What would become of their Declarations? Would every word be stricken from the records?

2. If you could dissolve all existing condominium associations, what would you do about the existing condominium properties and their millions of unit owners?

3. Would you also dissolve all the housing cooperatives in the country?

4. If we abolish the institutions of common interest housing as we know them, how do you envision new housing being built in the future? How will the structural considerations that drove the CID craze be addressed in new non-CID housing? These include the high cost of suburban land, the very high cost of urban land, and local governments being in dire fiscal condition. All this led to the current conspiracy between developers and local governments to spread common interest housing everywhere by mandate. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, please read up on it before commenting).

Please don't post huge chunks of copyrighted material in the comments section

I just deleted a comment that was mainly a huge block of text from the newspaper article I linked to. Can't do that. These articles are copyrighted material and there are plenty of cases in the courts right now over bloggers taking more than the "fair use" exception allows. A brief quotation is all that can be posted in a weblog.

The comments section is for your comments, not for posting another 250 words from the article itself. If people want to read the article, they can follow the link.

Richmond students get ready for new whooping cough vaccine requirement

"In September 2010, the California legislature passed a law requiring all students in grades seven through 12 who are in private and public schools to show proof they received the “Tdap” vaccine that protects against pertussis. The shot also protects against tetanus and diphtheria."
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Thanks to Fred Pilot for sending me this. I was very sick with pertussis from mid-November through mid-February, and I'm still coughing in the morning. It was the sickest I have ever been in my life. Whooping cough is serious and highly contagious, and it is making a huge comeback thanks to these moron parents who think vaccinations are dangerous.

If you haven't had a pertussis booster within the last ten years, you have no protection. Better get one, because believe me--you do not want to get this. Trust me.

Righthaven loses second fair use ruling over copyright lawsuits - Friday, March 18, 2011 | 4:56 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun

Righthaven loses second fair use ruling over copyright lawsuits - Friday, March 18, 2011 | 4:56 p.m. - Las Vegas Sun: "An Oregon nonprofit did not infringe on copyrights when it posted without authorization an entire Las Vegas Review-Journal story on its website, a judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge James Mahan said during a hearing he planned to dismiss, on fair use grounds, a copyright infringement lawsuit filed against the Center for Intercultural Organizing (CIO), in Portland, Oregon."
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Good. I don't post or link anything from the Las Vegas Review-Journal because they allowed Righthaven, a copyright troll firm, to sue bloggers who made fair use of their stories. Now judges are showing them the door.