Life in ‘Southern California’s Foreclosure Alley’
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In ‘What Happened to the Neighbors?,’ GQ sends writer Charles Bowden ‘to live in one of the loneliest neighborhoods on the planet’ in Lake Elsinore, part of what they refer to as ‘Southern California’s Foreclosure Alley.’
For his rental he picks a place not far from where bobcats took up residency in August in a foreclosed home. Bowden gets to know his landlords, who are struggling to hang on to an ‘underwater’ house, as well as neighbors in similar situations, and concludes the area won’t be bouncing back any time soon:
These houses are seventy-five miles from jobs in a world where oil gets ever scarcer. They are large and thus expensive to heat and cool. And forgive me, Southern California contractors, but they are junk. The market for $450,000 houses with ARMs waiting like assassins in the financial tall grass is over for good. It is quite possible that we have built and financed houses, developments, whole towns, without futures, that will collapse and become curious ruins.
That’s a sobering thought as this slice of life plays out in one neighborhood after another across the Southland. A hat tip to Pete from Mar Vista for calling the article to L.A. Land’s attention.
-- Lauren Beale
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