Re: Housing starts a.k.a. land attrition

"Enough Already" <enough_already@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message 
news:841acad4-1cc5-410e-acf2-a2211089e248@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> 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 housing development begins with raw land and plows roads 
through them.  Then, the housing starts are processing and building
begins. 
Not the other way around.

What happens afterward is widening of access roads to this aforementioned 
development, adding shops and stores along the said access road along the 
way.  Its a sup****t structure for the people who frequent such roads.

> The standard definition of housing starts makes no mention of land
> losses and the attendant increase in water & energy consumption, plus

Common sense, its (start) simple permission of the governing locale
allowing 
commencing of building a home.


> 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.

Its also comparison of undefined housing starts.   That is, one could be a

vast majority of modest homes with another sample of starts of more 
expensive homes involved.  That is, simple comparison of number of housing

starts in one year to another year is comparing apples and oranges unless
we 
know what the starts are starting in terms of monies.
..

Housing starts are an
> im****tant economic indicator because they show how much money the
> general public has. If there is a rise in housing starts it likely

See above, could be BS as well.

> 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."

Uhhhh, the VAST majority of people borrow to purchase a home as that is 
their only alternative.  Will has nothing to do with it.

>
> 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?
>

The chicken and egg thing is the basis of the economy, not just housing. 
Another instance is Social Security, its very basis is a constantly 
increasing population paying in vice paying out.

> 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

Don't worry, nature always rebounds.  We, and our grandchildren, just
won't 
be around when it does...

> real estate profits. There will be the usual talk of energy efficient
> homes, but they will never reverse the net impact of overpopulation.
>

The planet has be human over-populated for over a century now.  Its just a

matter of time.

> 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.

People will suc***b to lack of resources and lack of usable land for their

sustenance like any other creature of nature.

-- 
Dave

How about a tax to sup****t any military conflict/police action over 3
months 
old?

An actual war, we can do what's been done in the past.