Bacon's Rebellion

This is no time to celebrate.

EMR got a call from a friend this week. They opened with:

“Glad to catch you, I thought you might be on a victory tour in the Carribean or Southern Europe – too cold for Canada or Northern Europe.”

?Why so; What celebration?

“Well you have a lot to celebrate. I have known you for 20 years and over that time and especially in the last eight years you have been railing against folks that are now taking their lumps”

?Who is that?

“Well the list is long:

“Auto manufacturers (and their ad agencies) who have been misleading citizens about the use cars and the Mobility and Access Crisis. Now they are headed for bankruptcy – OK the ad agencies are still raking it in but not for long.

“The shelter industry that has been offering and financing the Wrong Size House in the Wrong Location is in deep trouble for neglecting to address the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis.

“Developers that have been putting up orphan subdivisions with a 7-11 and calling it “new urbanism” are going down. How about General Growth Properties! What a name! And then there all the jack-legs building on 10 acre lots and Toll Brothers of the world who build “estates”… All major contributors to the Helter Skelter Crisis.

“Even Wal*Mart is postponing opening stores, has rolled out a 15,000 sq foot store and is taking the advise of its green advisers and is trying to improve its image.

“The real estate market – especially for McMansions and for ‘starter homes’ in orphan subdivisions – is in the gutter – 30 straight months of decline.

“OK it is going down in some places but not everywhere. Citizens who followed your advice and invested in shelter near jobs and services and then went further and invested time and effort in their Dooryard and Cluster and in their schools and in “neighborhood watch” are doing OK and some are doing very well.

“Even the new census data through June 2008 supports your views.

“Finally, the last two federal elections have wiped out a lot of those who have been selling the environment and the Bay (and the air and the oceans) down the drain to support “growth”

OK, I get your point.

Back early last fall Fahmah, who had recently read and edited Volume I of The Shape of the Future said something similar. “You must feel pretty good that all the things you predicted in your book in 2000 are proving true.”

EMR thanked Fahmah for the complement but should have amplified it by what he told the recent caller:

THIS IS NO TIME TO CELEBRATE.

A lot of good citizens are being hurt by the actions they thought were in their best interest but were not because they relied on bad advice and conventional wisdom.

A lot of good Enterprises are suffering through no fault of their own.

Some good Agencies are in trouble because they did not intelligently prepare for the future.

A lot of good Institutions are being stretched to the limit.

This is all because of the greed and ignorance of some “entrepreneurs,” some governance practitioners and a lot of BeliefTank shills who worship at the feet of Business-As-Usual and Politics-As-Usual.

Citizens are attacking the symptoms and the symbols, not the root causes of the turmoil.

The Economists Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicts a ‘global pandemic of unrest.’ Workers at a Caterpillar facility took supervisors hostage because of threatened layoffs. It was the third such incident in France. The EIU report lists 95 potential problem nation-states.

No one warned citizens of the consequences of 35 years of burning through Natural Capital – not the Agencies, not the Institutions and not the media that is now owned by Enterprises.

Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of human settlement patterns, just the result of dysfunction.

Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of governance structure. As long as citizens are suck with a 1790s ideal of a three level governance structure without a rational allocation of control to the level of impact, there will be no improvement.

Almost no one is yet talking about Fundamental Transformation of the economic system. As long as there are agents, brokers and blind investments; as long as there are secret bank accounts, tax havens and tax-free Institutions and as long as there is no fair allocation of costs there is no hope of evolving a real market economy.

There is celebration about getting rid of plastic bags at the grocery store but what about the packaging inside the reusable bags? What about the security of the entire food supply that is dependent on cheap fuel – fertilizer, industrialized farm machinery, transport and the water that cheap fuel can pump from dwindling aquifers?

There is celebration of curly light bulbs and of smart grids but what about the impact of a high voltage grid to bring cheap coal generated electricity to energy hogging distributions of human activity?

There is celebration of green buildings with sod roofs but what about that vast majority of the buildings that are not only dumb but leave the lights on all night which – along with the roadways where Large, Private Vehicles drive with their own lights – light the sky not the places where citizens need to see. What about motion detectors on every light. That would light up the good guys AND the bad guys.

There is celebration of hybrid cars but the ones that Detroit is pushing are full sized SUVs, muscle pickups and $100K battery packs. The plan is to spend most of the stimulus to build and rebuild roadways for vehicles that are not sustainable in settlement patterns that are the root cause of dysfunction.

Conservation organizations are crowing about “saving” 20 percent of the land area in the “best” jurisdictions when the number should be 95 percent. At least some are supporting Regional and Community food chains and opposing Big Grids.

Citizens have been abandoned by the old Fourth Estate as it is swallowed by the Second Estate. There is no Citizen Media on the horizon because no one yet understands how to make money from Citizen Media. As a result citizens do not have the information they need to make intelligent decisions in the Market Place or in the voting booth.

The planning profession is still mired in support of Business-As-Usual and Politics-As-Usual.

No, this is no time to celebrate. But thanks for the call, EMR appreciates those who at least read what he has been writing for two decades.

EMR

Cul de Sacs Really Are Important

As an intro to his comment on China on IN THE NEWS – VOL I, Groveton said that the China problem “was slightly more important” than Cul de Sacs in Virginia. Well, China is important as the comments on IN THE NEWS – CHINA attest but so is the topic of Cul de Sacs.

The annals of Paleontology, Archeology, Zoology, Anthropology and Architecture are replete with evidence that animals, including Homo sapiens and their ancestors, favor cul de sacs – nests, borrows, caves, huts, pueblos – for many activities related to reproduction, eating, sleeping, safety and loafing.

Every human dwelling Unit is a combination of halls and cul de sacs. All Urban human settlement patterns – including scattered Urban dwellings in the Countryside – are combinations of cul de sacs and halls and Streets and Roads.

Almost every high value place of human activity of Cluster, Neighborhood or Village scale is a network of Streets with Cul de Sacs for people to live work and seek recreation. See Lewenz “How to Build a Village.”

On the other hand a GRID of Roads with a monoculture of Cul de Sac Units is little better than a “subdivision” of Cul de Sac mini-Roads for most economic, social and physical activities.

(NB: There is an important difference between Streets and Roads. These differences impact human activity at all scales of settlement form the Unit to the Planet. See GLOSSARY)

The PROBLEM with “sub”urban Cul de Sacs mini-Roads is that humans bring home their Large, Private Vehicles (aka, Autonomobiles).

Bringing home the Autonomobile results in three toxic conditions:

1. Disaggregation of human settlement patterns at both ends of the Autonomobile trip. Widespread use of Autonomobiles results in dysfunction at all scales of settlement patterns.

2. Having a Large, Private Vehicle gives humans the mistaken impression they need to share NOTHING with the adjacent Households or Enterprises. Social isolation and lack of critical mass to create economic prosperity are the cumulative results.

3. A large number of citizens having to rely on Large, Private Vehicles for Mobility and Access results in Regional transport dysfunction – The Mobility and Access Crisis.

The reliance on Large, Private Vehicles is made very clear in THE PROBLEM WITH CARS.

Virginia Cul de Sacs are a prime driver of The Mobility and Access Crisis, The Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis and The Helter Skelter Crisis – dysfunctional human settlement patterns. Virginia must evolve functional human settlement patterns soon because that is the most important and fastest step to shrink humans ecological footprint. For starters, functional settlement patterns allows citizens to drastically reduce importing and burning through Natural Capital. If citizens do not shrink their ecological footprint Collapse is on the horizon. So the Cul de Sac issue IS important.

There is no way to overestimate the impact of Cul de Sacs on the economic, social and physical disaggregation of society for the simple reason that lack of understanding of the impact of Cul de Sacs leads to activities that drive settlement pattern dysfunction.

EMR

Topics that have been the focus of past Bacon’s Rebellion Columns and Posts:

Item One:

The Wealth Gap was still getting wider in 2007 – the latest numbers from Federal Reserve.

Fundamental Transformation of the economic system (as well as Fundamental Transformation of the settlement pattern and Fundamental Transformation of the governance structure) or Collapse.

Item Two:

Working at home seems to lead to layoffs for Teleworkers.

Too bad that Telework was not more intelligently positioned as a strategy to support the evolution of Balanced Communities instead of a crutch for long commutes.

Item Three:

US Census says migration to “the Outer Suburbs nearly halts” in the National Capital Subregion

Eat your heart out NVTA and the 12.5 Percenters.

Item Four:

Commonwealth Transportation Board has set new regs that will discourage cul-de-sad subdivisions. A favorite topic of Jim Bacon’s

Only 35 years too late. EMR testified against them and in favor of inter-Cluster connections in 1973. Wake us when municipalities and the Commonwealth agree to retrofit / interconnect Orphan Subdivisions to create interconnected Clusters, Neighborhoods and Villages.

Item Five:

CNN has to updating it’s running tab of newspaper closings hourly.

Another Jim Bacon favorite: Who WILL gather and report the news? See THE ESTATES MATRIX

EMR

Pardon my lengthy absence from the blog — I’ve just returned from vacation in Cancun. I didn’t spend much time studying human settlement patterns — I was happy to spend most of my time in the Club Med compound, and there was nothing about Cancun, which was first developed only 30 years ago, that struck me as worth seeing. However, we did take one day trip to Chitzen Itza, the magnificent Maya ruins, and stopped briefly in the charming colonial town of Valladolid on the way back to Cancun.

WHY IS IT SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND LOCATION VARIABLE COSTS?

EMR is awaiting Groveton’s examples of same house, same builder prices to support his assertions on THE ANATOMY OF AN ILLUSION post.

In the meantime, Groveton has forgotten that EMR has outlined homework for Groveton to use to prove to himself the validity of location-variable cost calculations.

Before we start lets be sure everyone understands that it is not Groveton’s fault that he does not pay his location-variable costs. No one does for reasons spelled out in The Shape of the Future. The same is true for the full cost of air travel – greatly subsidized by all tax payers and by all citizens but that is another story.

First EMR is glad that he did not say that Groveton could not afford to live where he does if he had to pay the location-variable costs. EMR said Groveton would not have made the location decision if he knew the true costs and thought he would have to pay that cost. EMR stands with that.

Based on his 8:30 AM comment of 14 March, Groveton probably could afford the true cost but he does not pay that cost and neither do his Clustermates and they may or may not be able to afford those costs.

In the 8:30 AM post Groveton said:

“OK –

“It’s tax time in the Old Dominion. I pay about $225,000 in state and local taxes. Not federal and I’m not even counting sales taxes, etc. Just plain old income and real estate taxes. I live on a 7 acre lot. I drive about 10,000 miles per year – total (commute and errands). My street is owned by me and the neighbors. We pay to pave it, plow it, repair it, etc. I have my own septic system and well water. I have five sons – one is in college (out of state), three go to private schools and one is in the Fairfax County system.”

“Now … just one more time … please explain how I am not covering my full costs.”

It is clear that Groveton would pay the same state and municipal taxes if lived in a dwelling that was taxed the same amount REGARDLESS OF WHERE he lived in the Commonwealth and the municipal jurisdiction. So by definition, not much of the information provided gives a hint of total location-variable costs.

In general taxes one pays DO NOT go to support location-variable costs. If one could reallocate payments to the location-variable cost categories Groveton, who pays $225,000 might come close,but on average those in his Cluster, Neighborhood and Village do not come close.

There is further information from Groveton’s past posts that provide additional insights:

Groveton says he “lives Great Falls.” By that we suspect he means that he lives in the 22066 Zip Code. (More on Zip Code data problems in a future post.)

Groveton also implied that he is in the Difficult Run watershed and that this stream is close to where he lives. That means he lives in the far southeast (most Urban) corner of Zip 22066. His total location-variable costs will be lower here than in “Great Falls Proper” which is north and west of the Walker Road / Georgetown Pike Cross Roads (Village Centre). Places such as Richland Forest, Tally Ho or Beach Mill Downs to pick three names at random off the map

Now about those costs:

The first thing to do is to pick a nice house on Lake Audubon or Lake Thoreau that has about the same market value as his house.

The following will remind Groveton that EMR suggested an exercise to get a grip on location variable costs.

Start with electricity. How much is the cost of generation, transmission and distribution of a kilowatt to Groveton’s vis the alternative (capital cost and monthly delivery). Be sure to figure in line loss for low voltage transmission, the singe most clear demonstration of location-variable costs.

There are 40 plus or minus services that vary in cost by location that are, by-in-large now charged on a flat fee basis.

The original calculations were based on 1,000, 4 bedroom, two car garage Single Household Detached Dwelling Units (a nominal Neighborhood) located on 10,000 acres in four different patterns:

10 acre lots

functional but scattered Dooryards

functional but scattered Clusters

A functional Neighborhood.

It was assumed this Neighborhood was adjacent to another Neighborhood but the location- variable cost savings at the Village, Community, Subregion and Region were NOT calculated.

The best available cost were used and yes there were changes for water and sewer licencing, monitoring, and testing and off site impacts based on charges made in other Regions.

There were assumptions about the cost of bussing children, the cost of mail delivery, parcel delivery, telephone service, etc.

The data was collected and refined over a four year period. Two years after The Shape of the Future was published, and no one who bothered to take the time to understand the calculations challenged the assumptions or the numbers the data was recycled when EMR moved to from Inside the Clear Edge around the Core of the Subregion to a location inside the Clear Edge around a potentially Balanced but Disaggregated Village.

In 2008, some of the costs will be higher, some will change completely – cell phones use for example — but overall the 10 X Rule would stand up quite well.

Groveton said: “This is BS. The facts don’t support the conjecture.”

This is not BS, it may appear to be inconsistent with the experience of those who do not bother to take the time to understanding human settlement patterns and location-variable costs.

In the same string of comments, TMT said that “Not EMR” was smoking something AND inhaling.

Actually “Not EMR” really does understand, he / she just can not bring themselves to admit it, and so they work to obscure and obfuscate reality.

TMT also said: “A semi-rural Great Falls is the best friend of county residents.”

It would be it the residents paid their fair share of the location-variable costs.

There is no reason for scattered Urban land uses outside the logical location of the Clear Edge around the Core of the Subregion – UNLESS THEY ARE IN COMPONENT OF A BALANCED COMMUNITY, in which case they would be within a Clear Edge of that Alpha Community.

EMR

IN TIMES OF IRRATIONAL EXUBERANCE, ILLUSIONS GROW LIKE KUDZU. BUT WHY DO THEY CONTINUE TO SURVIVE WHEN THE ECONOMY IS SHRINKING – AS IT MUST – AND AMONG CITIZENS SHOULD KNOW BETTER?

SuperMassDenial cannot be the whole answer.

One of the most frustrating aspects of working to create an understanding of functional and dysfunctional human settlement patterns is dealing with those who blithely claim that “the facts” support their position when they must know at some level that they are absolutely wrong.

It is one thing when the advocate of an Illusion if someone is heavily invested in an unfortunate decision. It is another for a person who claims to be young enough to know better continues to chan the mantra of dysfunction.

Case in point: The comment of NovaMiddleMan (NMM) that “the vast majority” support scattered Urban dwellings stated a comment on the DISAPPOINTMENT CUBED post of 18 February. Here is part of that post (in italics) with comments.

At 6:23 PM NMM said”

“I agree the blog format is not the best way to communicate.”

Great! An area of agreement to build on! In fact blogging may be the WORST way to communicate because it allows rabid defense of ridiculous positions.

“I can sense your frustration about the lack of a common nomenclature.”

But then why do you continue to use Core Confusing Words? Do you understand that continuing to use Core Confusing Words like “suburban” makes no sense, literally?

…………

“The bottom line however is that the data suggests a vast majority reject your viewpoint…”

Since EMR’s position is the market favors more Balanced settlement patterns, this must mean that “the vast majority” support unBalanced settlement patterns.

NMM must know there is no data to support his statement. Why does he make this statement?

The numbers are clear 87.5 percent (1980 to 1990 data upon which the 87.5 Percent Rule is based) did NOT choose scatteration at the Dooryard and Cluster scale, even when the choices were limited. There has never been less than 80 percent of the market who favor Balanced over scatteration IF GIVEN A CHOICE regardless of income. Twenty percent is not “a vast majority” it is an uninformed minority.

NMM has not shown one case where the same unit by the same builder sells for LESS in a more Balanced component of human settlement than it sells for a less Balanced or unBalanced, monoculture component.

The reason he has not cited the data is that it does not exist. From the 70s to the 90s there was a $100,000 difference between more Balanced vs less Balanced / unBalanced contexts.

NB: IF the TOTAL cost of location variable costs were assessed, the scattered site (unBalanced) dwelling would cost far more but that is not the case under current conditions.

The bottom line is that the market pays a premium for a more Balanced locations, period.

The market proves that NMM’s view “The American Dream” is sales hype when citizens ARE GIVEN A CHOICE.

[NB: in a later comment in this string, NMM admitted he was basing his comment on the PEW survey noted in the DISAPPOINTMENT CUBED post. This survey was profiled because of the gross Vocabulary confusion and is not a basis for identifying informed opinions. Using this survey to establish preference has all the validity of going to a used car lot and asking the first 100 tire kickers: “If price and maintenance was not an issue would you rather have a Hyundai or a Mercedes?”]

To further examine the blanket statement: “a vast majority reject your viewpoint” vis a vis residential settlement patterns – that is that the vast majority prefer scattered, unBalanced settlement patterns as opposed to more Balanced settlement patterns. Here is a two step exercise for those who want to understand the basics:

It is economically impossible for ‘a vast majority’ to own a Single Household Detached Dwelling. That is because given a normal distribution of disposable income in any First World nation-state from 60 to 95 percent of the population (depending on the state of the economy and the allocation of true costs) COULD NOT AFFORD a Single Household Detached Dwelling.

Let us assume that, fearing an uprising from ‘a vast majority’ who favor scatteration, it was decided to pay a housing stipend to every Household so ‘the vast majority’ could afford to pay for ‘what they wanted’ and they did in fact buy The American Dream per NMM.

Under those conditions it would be physically (to say nothing of economically) impossible to provide services, especially – but not limited to – Mobility and Access.

The following phrase was separated out from the rest of NMM’s assertion because these last four words make the statement into a pure red herring.

“… of urban dense living …”

EMR does not advocate “dense” Urban living. EMR does not advocate density for density’s sake. EMR advocates exactly what the market finds most attractive – Balance, especially at the Alpha Village- and Alpha Community scale.

“and prefer a ‘sub’urban lifestyle …”

Intentional use of a Core Confusing Word such as ‘suburban’ is always a red herring. The user must define what they mean by “suburban” using lot size, dwelling size, persons per acre density and other metrics for each component scale of settlement pattern from the Unit to at least the Alpha Community (aka, lowest six components in the New Urban Region Conceptual Framework.)

“close to a major metropolitan area.”

If “the vast majority” lived some where else, there would be no “metropolitan” area only scattered “sub”Urban land uses.

Even more important “close to” indicates this “vast majority” lives OUTSIDE major metropolitan areas. Since the majority of all residents live INSIDE major metropolitan areas this must be “the vast majority” of the minority?

“Those are the facts and that is what the market has demanded for years …”

As noted above, that is not so. The MARKET provides a premium for well located units in more Balanced components.

“… and still continues to demand.”

Even the marginal “demand” has slipped as the cost of dysfunction has become more painful.

“I would also add again a majority also prefer …”

“Prefer” if they believe they are among the few who can afford the total price. The larger the Region, the higher the price.

“… and demand access to automobiles and driving.”

There was never a time when driving would provide mobility for more than 50 percent of the population and that number is shrinking as the population ages and the cost rises and / or the ability to pay shrinks.

“That is not an ideological hobby horse those are the facts on the ground.”

Sorry, it is an Illusion AND a ideological hobby horse..

“I guess in all seriousness I question what you hope to achieve through this medium.”

Learn if there is a way to cure Illusions and to understand the perspective of those gripped by Myth.

“I think after several months or years most of us understand what you are trying to do.”

Apparently not since NMM has not yet gotten a handle on EMR’s perspective.

“However you seem to fail to understand the reality of the situation.”

See above.

“The world is not a sandbox you can control at will.”

Another red herring. NMM will not find a bigger advocate of the market, so long as it is a well informed market, that is citizens ca
n make decisions that are in fact in their individual and collective best interest. What is it that the vast majority would choose, if they had a choice and understood the consequences of their actions.

“Like it or not the population has rejected and continues to reject your vision for the future.”

See above.

Without a Fundamental Transformation of the governance structure (and the economic structure) there will be no Fundamental Transformation of the human settlement pattern and thus no potential for a sustainable trajectory of civilization.

The democracies with market economies are an impossibility without all three Fundamental Transformations.

As luck would have it more and more are discovering this reality. See Lifestyle preferences are shifting by Bill Cunniff in the 27 Feb Sun-Times. For a summary of the marketing success of those who claim to sell dwellings in more Balanced environments subscribe to New Urban News.

EMR

The cost of infrastructure to support functional human settlement patterns.

In the comments following the 27 February MORE VOCABULARY post, Larry Gross made a very good observation:

Current methods of treating sewerage adsorbs a lot of energy and are very expensive.

Treating sewerage and other human waste is a cost of contemporary technology-driven Urban civilization. The cost of heath care, safety, education, shelter and access are also very high. Further, the real total cost is much more than is now being paid. That is why the infrastructure to supply these services is deteriorating.

All the essential services could be far more efficient if there were functional human settlement patterns but they would will still cost a lot more than is currently being invested if citizens are to have anything like the level of health, education, safety, shelter and access that is expected in a technologically advanced society.

The results of conventional sewerage treatment prove that what is now being spent is not effective. Humans are polluting the ground water, streams, estuaries and the oceans with their waste. That means a lot more has to be spent to get it right – even with functional settlement patterns, new technology and more efficient operation.

By the citation Larry posted (“Yellow is the New Green” a 27 January story about land application strategies for sewerage in China) he is suggesting there must be a better way.

This may be just another wan attempt to justify scatteration of Urban land uses by a died-in-the-wool 12.5 Percenter but EMR takes it as an attempt to make a constructive suggestion.

Inside the Clear Edge.

EMR has never been a fan of Big Pipe systems.

There are no Regional systems in the US of A but the large SubRegional systems do not have good track records for on supplying water or treating sewerage. It is also clear that the Agencies have been major contributors to dysfunctional settlement patterns.

The multi-Community water and sewer Agencies and Enterprises are rewarded (prestige, pay, etc.) for “growth.” This has led them to historically support higher per capita use and to expand their service to areas not well suited for Urban development. Like highway Agencies that have not negative feedback from dysfunctional settlement patterns, building more is “good” for the water and sewer Organizations if not for citizens or the environment. The examples of bad practice from the Fairfax Water Authority, the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, The Washington Aqueduct, etc. fill volumes.

Like Hospitals and Colleges, every Alpha Community should have a Community Water and Sewer Agency that is directly responsible to the citizens of the Community, not Agencies that serve parts of Communities or parts of many Communities.

One overarching problem with traditional Big Pipe systems is mixing clean water with waste and in many cases adding storm water to the same pipes. There is no way to efficiently treat that flow.

When citizens get serious about rebuilding the Urban fabric, systems that recycle blue, green and grey water and use waste to generate energy can be applied at the Cluster and Neighborhood scales (MIUS) within a Community system. That is if there are still resources available to support restructuring given the current trajectory.

There are many ways to cut costs before there is fundamental change in settlement patterns. Some of them involve charging those who dispose of exotic compounds that drive up the cost of treatment – including kitchen garbage disposal units – that make the waste more complex than human waste that has already been digested.

Outside the Clear Edge

There are many excellent strategies to treat human waste in Non-Urban contexts.

The implication that these systems are “cheap” or intrinsically better than Urban solutions or that these systems are a way to justify scatteration of Urban land uses is a terrible Illusion driven by a number of Myths.

Some of Non-Urban waste system costs can be offset by “sweat equity” in both construction and operations but not many like the idea of digging ditches or carrying out pails of night soil.

When the cost of a sophisticated system – including the energy to operate the system – and the cost of inspection and maintenance is totaled up, the real cost is as high per capita as Urban systems – sometimes higher.

Why are there energy costs? Those microbes work for free but only in certain temperature ranges and only with the correct levels of oxygen.

Why must there be inspection and maintenance costs? To insure there are no off-site impacts beyond that of a well managed, state of the art Alpha Community System.

On the general topic of infrastructure, Bruce Katz of Brookings gave a very good talk at the National Governors Conference Winter Meeting in late February. “Strengthening Our Infrastructure for a Sustainable Future.” Not a thing he said was not on target. It was what Bruce he did NOT say – he never mentioned human settlement patterns and it is not possible to have functional infrastructure and dysfunctional settlement patterns.

EMR

Wrong Size House in the Wrong Location

There is a lot of loose talk by 12.5 Percenters about how the ‘housing crisis’ is all about California and Nevada.

Today’s numbers: Virginia underwater mortgage rate is 19.6 percent. That is about one in five.

As luck would have it, Virginians are Over-housed. There is plenty of room for second and third dwellings in well located structures.

And there is plenty of room for chickens and goats in the walk-out basements of McMansions on one, two, five and ten acre lots that the 12.5 Percenters love.

The data shows a pattern: the more dysfunctional the settlement pattern, the higher the rate of underwater mortgages.

Good locations are still holding their own because even if the borrower is “subprime,” the dwelling is not and ‘someone’ always needs a dwelling in a good location.

If Agencies and Enterprises had started to allocate the fair, equitable cost of location-variable expenses when the problem was first articulated and the data was first available (BEFORE the 2000’s bubble) then the Affordable and Accessible Housing Crisis would not have become the ‘housing crisis’ that led to the Global Financial Meltdown.

You could have read all about it on the Original Bacon’s Rebellion.

EMR