Housing starts a.k.a. land attrition

Does anyone think about how much land gets covered by blessed housing
starts each year? This includes interstitial land in urbanized areas,
gross urban expansion i.e. sprawl, agricultural land like California's
increasingly-paved Central Valley, and pristine land on the edges of
designated wilderness.

The standard definition of housing starts makes no mention of land
losses and the attendant increase in water & energy consumption, plus
mandatory road-building. Like most economic creeds, housing starts are
still defined mainly in terms of money and jobs. The land itself is
treated as an infinite sink for this "progress" to occur in.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_starts:

"Housing Starts are used in the United States of America as an
indicator of the state of the economy. Housing Starts are the number
of privately owned new homes (technically housing units) on which
construction has been started over some period. Housing starts are an
important economic indicator because they show how much money the
general public has. If there is a rise in housing starts it likely
means there is more money in the economy. Additionally if there are
more Housing Starts in a time period the Federal Funds Rate is
presumably low enough for individuals to be willing to borrow money
from banks."

With annual U.S. population growth at 3 million, housing starts must
be consuming thousands of acres each year. Does anyone in the building
industry see an end to this malignancy? Does anyone see that
population growth is the chicken & egg precursor to job-creation?

With U.S. population projections of 400 to 500 million by mid-century,
millions of acres of "empty" space will be written off as expendable.
Nature will keep getting buried for the sake of construction jobs and
real estate profits. There will be the usual talk of energy efficient
homes, but they will never reverse the net impact of overpopulation.

http://www.wcs.org/humanfootprint (housing starts are stomping all
over the place)

E.A.

http://enough_already.tripod.com/terrasrvr.htm

Economic growth: the endless replacement of nature with people.

Posted by George Conklin on March 29, 2008, 1:11 pm

> Does anyone think about how much land gets covered by blessed housing

> starts each year? This includes interstitial land in urbanized areas,

> gross urban expansion i.e. sprawl, agricultural land like California's

> increasingly-paved Central Valley, and pristine land on the edges of

> designated wilderness.

Well, with half our counties losing population, why not worry about
depopulation for a change?

Posted by Matt W. Barrow on March 29, 2008, 4:56 pm

>> Does anyone think about how much land gets covered by blessed housing

>> starts each year?

In total, the US housing accounts for about 6% of total land area.

> This includes interstitial land in urbanized areas,

>> gross urban expansion i.e. sprawl, agricultural land like California's

>> increasingly-paved Central Valley, and pristine land on the edges of

>> designated wilderness.

See above.

> Well, with half our counties losing population, why not worry about

> depopulation for a change?

What fun is that? You can't generate incredible hysterics from that!

:~)

Posted by George Conklin on March 29, 2008, 7:58 pm

> >

> >> Does anyone think about how much land gets covered by blessed housing

> >> starts each year?

> In total, the US housing accounts for about 6% of total land area.

> > This includes interstitial land in urbanized areas,

> >> gross urban expansion i.e. sprawl, agricultural land like California's

> >> increasingly-paved Central Valley, and pristine land on the edges of

> >> designated wilderness.

> See above.

> > Well, with half our counties losing population, why not worry about

> > depopulation for a change?

> >

> What fun is that? You can't generate incredible hysterics from that!

You can bemoan abandoned towns!!!

Posted by Matt W. Barrow on March 29, 2008, 8:24 pm

>> > Well, with half our counties losing population, why not worry about

>> > depopulation for a change?

>> >

>> What fun is that? You can't generate incredible hysterics from that!

> You can bemoan abandoned towns!!!

Or you can make them "Ghost Town" tourist traps. :~)

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