[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally posted by RallyJon
People who make a very good living and/or enjoy waking up in the middle of the night screaming because they're so massively leveraged. As for people who pay that for mass-produced new construction... well I guess if they can't tell the difference it's not my place to tell them.

I just don't get the concept of a so-called neighborhood being manufactured in less than a decade. Plop: houses. Plop: schools. Plop: shopping malls. How does this add up to a "nice" place to live? I guess trees aren't on the short list, and they don't subtract for when you're sitting in a traffic jam with cornfields on both sides.

I guarantee you, 90% of them are #2, the massively leveraged. Only in our wonderful country can you put on the appearence of being rich, which actually being so deep in debt you will never get out. That's why we rent right now, we couldn't easily afford what we want, so we'll just save another year or two until we can.

Developments suck, nothing is worse than an entire neighborhood of houses that are the exact same thing, with slightly different paint. Disposable housing is what it is, give it 10 years and they all look like hell because the cheap siding is starting to rot and the sheetrock is cracking inside. When we were house shopping we wouldn't consider a house newer than 1970 or so, because that's when the development craze started here in Wichita. Older neighborhoods are the only way to go, the houses have character and are different, the yards are typically bigger, and a nice older neighborhood will typically stay nice, because that's why people live there in the first place. Oh yeah, and they have trees, people in developments must all feel as if they're in the desert with all the barren lots.