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The Planetizen News Brief - 4/9/09

9 April 2009 - 5:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

Full Transcript

Vacant buildings are becoming an emblem of the times. The bust of the housing market, the subprime mortgage fiasco, the resulting foreclosure explosion and the global economic recession have caused a lot of people, businesses and banks to simply walk away from their buildings. Recent counts from 35 of America’s big cities show increases in homelessness, according to USA Today. Cities like Phoenix, L.A. and Chicago saw big jumps in the number of homelesswhen they conducted citywide counts in February. But the problem’s not just in cities- some suburbs are also seeing major increases this year, the first nationwide homeless count conducted since 2007. Seattle area officials reported a more than 40% increase in homelessness in suburban areas, due in no small part to the growing number of foreclosures.

But foreclosures are not just a problem for former homeowners. Now, even banks are walking away from these properties as the costs of pursuing the foreclosure process are becoming too expensive. The New York Times reported recently that more and more banks in cities across the country are refusing to take possession of troubled properties at the end of the foreclosure process. Legal fees, maintenance costs, and even demolition are often more expensive than the homes themselves, so banks are taking the economical and easy way out and simply walking away. This has turned out to be a big problem for foreclosed homeowners, who are now saddled with the extra costs of maintaining or demolishing their now-worthless homes. Though there aren’t any hard numbers on just how many foreclosed homes have been abandoned by banks, many experts in the field are calling this the next wave of the housing crisis.

And all these abandoned homes are becoming a big problem for cities. Boarded up windows and unkempt properties have many city officials worried about an increase in crime and looting. In order to fight back, officials in Texas are stepping up efforts to get owners back into these abandoned buildings. The city of Fort Worth is reviving an old plan to more actively control abandoned properties. The city of Arlington had been billing property owners for the price of inspections to make sure abandoned properties weren’t falling apart. And a new bill moving forward at the state level would fine any property owner that doesn’t register vacant buildings or hold insurance. There’s even a move to require that the plywood used to cover any windows or doors be painted to match the color of the vacant building. Though these efforts seek to reduce the damage these vacant buildings could possibly cause, cities are still going to be left with a fleet of empty spaces.

But depending on how you look at them, those empty spaces might not be such a bad thing. The city of Detroit, for example has been overwhelmed by empty and abandoned properties, but now officials there are seeing the emptiness as an opportunity. According to a recent article in Time, more than one-third of the city is empty, and economic development officials are looking at the missing teeth of empty properties as a chance to downsize the city to a more reasonable size. It was once the fourth biggest city in the U.S., but nobody there thinks it’s ever going to get close to that type of population again. So instead of holding on to empty properties in hopes of a dramatic rebound, planners and officials are cutting them loose, favoring open space and parks. Experts say that there is a lot of opportunity for infill development in the city core, but they also predict we’ll see a much smaller Detroit in the future.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

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