tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-693256921060044086.post5355000834832187184..comments2009-11-20T19:05:00.316-08:00EGnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-693256921060044086.post-77744071681817757732009-11-20T19:05:00.316-08:002009-11-20T19:05:00.316-08:00I took note of today&#39;s Elk Grove Citizen with seven and a half pages of Elk Grovian foreclosures. In February there were five pages. A steady stream -- no sign yet of any bottom.<br /><br />A very large percentage of our current population bought a new housal unit here during our uncontrolled building fiesta. Many Elk Grovians have no experience in living in an aging home or older &quot;community.&quot; As our American birthright to a new car every four years stimulated the same feeling with new housing, those with means (i.e., the still employed) will shuffle off to newer and newer &quot;communities,&quot; resulting in the slow destruction of older suburban developments. Knowing that they will remain perpetually mortgaged regardless of moving or staying, they&#39;ll choose to move. They won&#39;t have to replace the siding. They won&#39;t have to deal with a leaking roof. <i>Maintenance free</i> if you keep moving to a newer development. <br /><br />Gougherty asks a good question -- when will the employed, the people with means, decide that their older hollowed out subdivisions aren&#39;t worth living in and move out?<br /><br />I ask myself that every day. I&#39;d love to live in a city where light rail service isn&#39;t just some moving thirty year target, where I can walk to the store without having to trudge four miles and risk death crossing the six lane Laguna Highway, and where I can find a good paying local job that isn&#39;t a strip retail salesman, a fast food purveyor, or a muffler installer.<br /><br />Sadly, I believe Elk Grove will continue to play the same string of low-density residential and strip commercial whenever we emerge from recession. In my eyes, our future isn&#39;t very bright.Insaniahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17121719911859185666noreply@blogger.com