It's a ghost town, baby.

This is a picture of things I see in my day to day job. It isn't always pretty.

A big part of my work is financing single family investment homes, and I have to say, it doesn't escape my attention that the post WWII suburban homes thrown up around the inside of 270 aren't holding up so well.

For example, I went to drive by some houses on Monday, and it was depressing. I was in neighborhoods that I'm sure (actually, I'm positive), just 10, 15 years ago were quite nice...and now, they have begun their inevitable slide into complete crapdom. They're not slums..yet. They aren't even BAD neighborhoods...yet.

But, the houses all have that pastel siding, green, blue, and grey, all looking very dull, very washed out, with their inevitable carport with the peeling paint. You drive by, and they almost always have the floor length windows, and the curtains look like crap, and you're supposed to (or at least in my job, I'm supposed to) be able to appreciate their value. And I feel bad. For the people stuck in them, for the people that can't sell, because they are no longer worth a damned thing.

Guys not that far removed from me, that go to work, make their money, and know (or perhaps it is better if they don't realize it?) that every lousy mortgage payment is just more money down the drain, because their piece of the American dream, like the little sub-division they call home is aging, and withering on the vine. What's to look forward to? Retirement? If these people are lucky, they'll get $40,000 to $50,000 out of a house they've been paying on for thirty years-so, no. They're not going anywhere. They'll sit in their houses, watch the renters move in, and make sure the locks on their doors are good.

It used to be that you could hold out for developers to come knock your house down, and at least sell to them-but in the current environment that simply isn't going to happen, Things are so overbuilt, it will be decades before there's an appetite for knocking down little bits of decayed suburbia, with their themed street names, and ever so organized sameness.

I don't like being a misery merchant, but I just got to thinking about it, and it's really heartbreaking. There are thousands of people 40 to 60 years old, scattered through this city (and many more just like it), that are screwed. They work hard, they bought their home, they made their payments, and for what? A bunch of politicians and policy wonks to tell them "Hey, btw-when you retire, we're skipping out on Social Security. Hope you don't mind. Oh, and that sure is a nice above ground pool you've got rusting in your backyard, bet the kids loved that growing up-oh well, later!! Enjoy the house!"

Oh well, at least Merle and Kris will put on a good show.