Suburban 'Hotels'

The Washington Post has an article today about the housing market and the government bailout of Fannie Mae. The first and third pages are pretty good but the piece was a tad flowery and kitschy. Anyway, Achenbach's piece had me thinking about subdivisions.

Subdivisions and apartment complexes sometimes have clubhouses. You put in a requisition with the homeowner's association or your rent them out and you get to have parties in the community property or the community pool or whatever. Why can't we do that with these foreclosed houses? I mean, theoretically, we do own them.

In this new age of open source technology, file sharing, and 24-hour test drives, wouldn't it be nice to just spend the weekend in that vacant house down the street? It's the ultimate time share. It's the vacation without the vacation. It's the low-maintenance hotel stay. It's the bed without the breakfast.

Have a fight with your wife? Forget the Hotel 6, just check the suburbs rife with FOR SALE signs. Just need to get away from the family? Just check down Oak Drive. Need to travel on the cheap? Don't look to the hostels; look to the lanes.


Think of all this as just a really big hotel

Just imagine the pride we would all feel if we could lay claim to all we saw once again. It's a new, half-developed frontier in America. This land is actually my land, at least if I paid my taxes. Of course, the song we all learned in elementary school would go through some edits but as Dylan said, "the times, they are a-changin'."

Don't think of it as socialism. Think of it as the new American getaway without getting away. Besides, who's driving anywhere on vacation with the price of gas these days, geez!

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