Towns wiped off the face of the earth

From the Associated Press:
CHATTOOGAVILLE, Ga. (AP) — Poetry Tulip has vanished. So have Due West and Po Biddy Crossroads. Cloudland and Roosterville are gone, too. A total of 488 communities have been erased from the latest version of Georgia’s official map, victims of too few people and too many letters of type.
Here's a link to a Christian Science Monitor story on the situation. If this disappears and you want to find out about this, just Google "Poetry Tulip" and "map."

One for the little guy

Voters in several states paved the way on Tuesday to help protect the little guy from big developers, passing laws to limit eminent domain. ED was OK when it was used only for things benefiting the public at large, such as highways, schools, bridges, but when the little folks are kicked out in favor of deep-pocketed builders, that's not fair.
Let's hear it for voters in: Michigan, South Carolina, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, North Dakota.
Let's also hear it for Maryland, whose Court of Appeals ruled that governments (spec. Baltimore) must be more transparent in land-acquisition and other ED procedures.
Voters in one NJ community also backed an anti-ED candidate to fill an unexpired council term: Brian A. Unger (no, not that Brian Unger), in Long Branch. As Asbury Park Press reports http://www.app.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061108/POLITICS/611080449/1004/OPINION:

"I would love to see the people of MTOTSA get a change of heart from the city," he said, referring to residents of the embattled neighborhood of Marine Terrace, Ocean Terrace and Seaview Avenue, who supported him. He believes the city should engage in realistic negotiations that would allow residents to keep their homes."

Real estate is slowing down, slowing down, slowing down

You may have heard that the real-estate market has slowed. Forbes.com lets us know where it's really bad.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/10/10/housing-bubble-metros-life-re-cx_tvr_1011restate.html

Among the places cited is the Providence, RI, Fall River, Mass., area. I visited Fall River once, mainly because my birthday falls on the same date that Lizzy Borden's parents were murdered. There is a certain melancholy to the town that I frankly find intriguing. I think it would make a good setting for a novel, in a William Kennedy, "Ironweed" kind of way.

Brookings tackles land use

Another amazing study by the Brookings Institution, this time on land use in the 50 largest metro areas:
http://www.brookings.org/metro/pubs/20060802_Pendall.pdf