Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
ominous
After the first of the year, traffic improved. Even now, I hit at least two sticky spots per day, and sometimes more. But the sticky spots aren’t nearly as sticky, and the really bad bits more often than not have good explanations: glass in the road. An accident for rubberneckers to gawk at. The mere presence of a cop.
I think it’s the recession. Back in the 90s, after the dotcom bubble burst, Bay Area traffic became souffle-light. This is more of the same — perhaps not as profound a plummet as that one, but far more broadly based.
Home values are down, too. On NPR the other day, I heard a Contra Costra realty board member talking about seventy percent reductions in home values. With Prop 13, new buyers will get their taxes locked in at the lower values, thereby permanently affecting municipal revenues. The Ghost of Howard Jarvis laughs, rattling his fat stinking jowls yet again, and our schools and infrastructure spending will suffer for it.
I’m okay so far . . . but I’ll be a lot happier once we manage to sell our house.
D.
I saw in the news that the US economy shrank by 3.8% last quarter… that’s a lot.
Cool gravatar!