America's Emptiest Cities

[underpants]

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/americas-emptiest-cities.html;_ylc=X3oDMTFubHNwbjJiBF9TAzI3MTYxNDkEX3MDOTc2MjA0NjUEcG9zAzEEc2VjA2ZwLXB1bHNlBHNsawN5cmUtcHJvbW8-

Las Vegas edged Detroit for the title of America's most abandoned city. Atlanta came in third, followed by Greensboro, N.C., and Dayton, Ohio. Our rankings, a combination of rental and homeowner vacancy rates for the 75 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the country, are based on fourth-quarter data released Feb. 3 by the Census Bureau. Each was ranked on rental vacancies and housing vacancies; the final ranking is an average of the two.

Cities like Detroit and Dayton are casualties of America's lengthy industrial decline. Others, like Las Vegas and Orlando, are mostly victims of the recent housing bust. Boston and New York are among the lone bright spots, while Honolulu is the nation's best with a vacancy rate of 5.8% for homes and a scant 0.5% for rentals.

Still, empty neighborhoods are becoming an increasingly daunting problem across the country. The national rental vacancy rate now stands at 10.1%, up from 9.6% a year ago; homeowner vacancy has edged up from 2.8% to 2.9%. Richmond, Va.'s rental vacancy rate of 23.7% is the worst in America, while Orlando's 7.4% rate is lousiest on the homeowner side. Detroit and Las Vegas are among the worst offenders by both measures--the Motor City sports vacancy rates of 19.9% for rentals and 4% for homes; Sin City has rates of 16% and 4.7%, respectively.

As real estate prices skyrocketed during the boom, consumers took out massive loans to buy homes, assuming values would continue to rise. Instead they took a nosedive, especially in places like Las Vegas, Florida and Phoenix, where the housing boom had created excess inventory and so-called "bad loans" were rampant. Many homeowners suddenly found themselves with properties worth far less than the mortgages they'd taken out. In the worst cases, banks foreclosed, leaving people without homes--and with more debt than they'd had to begin with.

But starting in the 1960s, Detroit began a precipitous decline. Detroit's population is now 900,000--half what it was in the middle of the century--and many of its neighborhoods languish in varying states of decay. Most scholars blame rapid suburbanization, outsourcing of manufacturing jobs, and federal programs they say exacerbated the situation by creating a culture of joblessness and dependency.

[KamaAina]

1. "Honolulu is the nation's best"

depends on your perspective, I guess. For low-income people looking for housing, particularly those with disabilities, it is among the worst. Most new construction out here is tilted toward luxury condos, often purchased as vacation homes by mainlanders. Plus our esteemed mayor :sarcasm: has decided that the way to avoid a repeat of the housing scandal from several years ago is not to have a housing department at all. :eyes:

[rucky]

2. If there are both rental vacancies and foreclosures...

where are these people living?

I don't think I want to know the answer to that.

[angrycarpenter]

3. With mom and dad

just like me. People are moving home to the home towns they left years ago to find that it is no longer home. I still haven't found a job. My home town is hurting worse than most.

[TBF]

7. Some are living here...

In hard times, tent cities rise across the country
Since foreclosure mess, homeless advocates report rise in encampments

RENO, Nev. - A few tents cropped up hard by the railroad tracks, pitched by men left with nowhere to go once the emergency winter shelter closed for the summer.

Then others appeared — people who had lost their jobs to the ailing economy, or newcomers who had moved to Reno for work and discovered no one was hiring.

Within weeks, more than 150 people were living in tents big and small, barely a foot apart in a patch of dirt slated to be a parking lot for a campus of shelters Reno is building for its homeless population. Like many other cities, Reno has found itself with a "tent city" — an encampment of people who had nowhere else to go.

(more at the link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26776283/)

[underpants]

8. I had been wondering about that

Jesus!

[sufrommich]

4. I am absolutely amazed any city is emptier than Detroit,

let alone Las Vegas. Wasn't Vegas one of the fastest growing cities just last year?

[blue_onyx]

5. I was surprised too

but it's nice not to be number 1 for once. Yes, Vegas was the fastest growing city for several of the past few years. Maybe it grew too much, too fast.

[sufrommich]

6. Yes, we'll take # 2. Some pretty gardens in the bare spots

would be nice too.

[SoCalDem]

10. Las Vegas..former home of Icarus.. n/t

[underpants]

9. About 5 years ago I remember ABC News saying that they finished a house every 20 minutes in Vegas

We were there off the strip in 2004 they were slapping up time shares in the area we were in like nothing flat

[MrSlayer]

11. Are the houses as cheap in Vegas as they are in Detroit?

You can get a house for less than eight grand in Detroit but I'd never consdier moving there. Vegas on the other hand, I would consider.

[lildreamer316]

12. Damn!! Greensboro?? I live here!

But I have noticed more vacancies in my neighborhood as of late. One across the street, two just around the corner.
Hmmm. What, exactly, does that mean for us?

[ConcernedCanuk]

13. People need shelter - if they lose their present shelter, they will adapt

.
.
.

empty buildings will of course be an attraction

so the POOR

will invade the empty houses of the foreclosed middle class/rich

and others will just strip them for whatever they can sell

massive foreclosures are just friggen insane IMO

better off to let the people stay there at partial payment and maintain the property

at least the property would be worth something years down the road when the economy recovers,

but it will recover alot slower if billions of real estate gets ruined through lenders greed and ignorance . .

that's my Canuk Opinion anyhoo . . .