When all of the upmarket humans depart for the offworld, there will be plenty of abandoned housing.
Atlanta real estate agents trying to weather the slumping market by selling foreclosures have run into an unexpected problem with a city government tired of neighborhoods overrun with derelict properties.
City code inspectors have begun ticketing some listing agents, holding them liable for code violations on run-down properties they are selling, often for out-of-state institutions.
"The situation in several neighborhoods in Atlanta is tragic," Broome said.
Buildings like the ones on Garibaldi and Bolton are scattered around the city but heavily concentrated in communities like Riverside, Vine City, Pittsburgh and English Avenue.
Many sit vacant and dilapidated for months as lenders go through the process of taking them back through foreclosure and then putting them on the market.
Hawkins said the department is doing its best to ensure someone cleans up and secures some of the worst properties in the city. She noted there are hundreds of homes and other buildings in distress in various neighborhoods and lots of pressure on the department for action.
"The city is desperate for all of us to take whatever steps we need to resolve this," Hawkins said.
Fundamental changes in American life may turn today’s McMansions into tomorrow’s tenements.
In the Franklin Reserve neighborhood of Elk Grove, California, south of Sacramento, the houses are nicer than those at Windy Ridge—many once sold for well over $500,000—but the phenomenon is the same. At the height of the boom, 10,000 new homes were built there in just four years. Now many are empty; renters of dubious character occupy others. Graffiti, broken windows, and other markers of decay have multiplied.
