On New Homes, Purchasers, And Quality

 New Home 3.0 is a fascinating microstudy in changing a city's nature, building, and the future of home developments.

Located in a greater metropolitan area but somewhat separated from it, it had the good fortune to start out as its own city (instead of an incorporated suburb) and so has an identity all its own.  One can find a small original downtown (which is well preserved and cared for), the inevitable next wave of growth of strip malls and big box stores, and the final expansion along the state highway which connects us to the larger urban area and is itself another zone for big box stores and major chains.

And yet, we are within 10 minutes of wide tracts of actively used agricultural land and small old agricultural towns that have not fully "made the transition" to a thriving city and so live with lesser well preserved downtowns and suburbs surrounding the historic town.

Add to this, then, the phenomena of large acreages being sold and housing developments being put in place.

To those that may not have seen them lately, housing developments are becoming less and less attractive.  Even 20 years ago, within a development there was some element of difference between the homes; one had 3-5 models to choose from and these were alternated on the lots.  Those days have passed:  the new housing developments are packed in (the so called "Zero-lot line", where there is minimal or no room between one's self and one's neighbor), minimal yards front and back, and the houses all appear precisely the same with only a difference in home colour to show a difference.  There are no trees in the back as you drive by, only yards and yards of fences with backs of houses staring at you as you drive by.

The building continues apace.  And yet, I wonder how long and what worth these will have.

While the economy may be booming in some areas, it is arguably not booming in New Home 3.0.  Some of the major employers have announced significant layoffs and given the state of what they make and the world, I scarcely think these are the last layoffs they will have.  These are precisely the jobs that are required to purchase a home here where $500,000 is the current low level for a home for sale - e.g., the market seems primed to be dropping off and in a big way.

The other thing that makes me wonder is the long term value.  Having at one time owned a house that was done by a commercial builder, I know quite well the quality of their construction, which can be "iffy' at best.  After all, when is building houses like an assembly line, "quality" may not be the biggest concern.  Speed in finishing them is.

Certainly it is not a problem now. But 20 years from now?  There are going to be hundreds of homes that will have the same range of issues.  Add to that a market which is seems to be changing, and I see the potential for whole areas of aging homes in states of disrepair and a limited buyers market as the "good" jobs disappear.

Is there a solution?  It is easy enough to say "Build less homes" (and I, as someone who sees the value in land not built on would completely agree with), but that does negate the right of the individual to do what they will with what they own.  Could cities also target their building towards already "built out" parts of town that need renewal?  Yes, but then one runs the complaints of "gentrification".  And all of this assumes an ever increasing populations with an income to afford them.

Likely this problem will not manifest directly for us; with some level of planning we will have a house in the not too distant future which will more or less be the one we keep until circumstances intervene.  But it does make me wonder, as I drive by clone after clone behind newly raised fencing, what it will look like in 20 years.

A Year Of Humility (XXVII): Better Than I

 I struggle with knowing when I am beyond my depth.

Many many years ago when I was a fledging undergraduate, my advisor commented that my methodology of debating was the equivalent of Blitzkreig:  an overwhelming storm of words and thoughts followed by a sort of "And that is the way it is".  He pointed out that this might not be the best way to engage in a debate, or really in life itself.

Among the things that lends itself to this sort of thing is sometimes the habit of thinking that a passing acquaintance with something equals a great knowledge of it.  In some cases that works - but not many.  This sort of thing can lead to "A Bridge Too Far", especially impactful if it is much beyond simple things like "How much to water the lawn" or "Which hay is best for my rabbit" (Timothy, if you were wondering, unless they are allergic to it).

What this combination of confident arguing in the face of any learning and assumption of greater depths of knowledge can lead to is personal and professional collapse.  Part of the maturity that, in theory, should come with time is the knowledge that we are not, colloquially put, "all that", and acknowledge the fact that we may not be as skilled/expert/knowledgeable about a thing as others.

This is the point where, at least for me, pride gets in the way.

One could argue that this is similar to my post last week, which discussed the primacy of Scripture.  It is true, but there is one additional aspect to it:  too often, my own pride gets involved.  After all, it is one thing to acknowledge that a document has the information that one lacks.  Oftentimes it seems quite a different thing to acknowledge the same of a person.

It is pride, of course.  It comes in different ways at different stages of our lives.  When we are young, we think "old people" do not know better; when we are old, we sniff at "the young" that do not have our experience.  Experts sniff at amateurs who may know far more about a thing than they; amateurs can disregard experts who lack "real world knowledge" and are lost in "ivory towers".

That is not to say that everyone is right all the time.  It is to say that sometimes we can overlook our best interests by pushing aside knowledge because of who it may come from.

Is it hard when I have to backtrack on something that I did not know as much about as others?  Yes.  Far better, at least for me, to hold my tongue at the outset and listen and find out where the gaps in my own knowledge might be.

Perhaps even far better to admit that I simply do not know everything about everything.  A little humility goes a long way towards learning.

On Continuing To Write The Collapse

 Of the many things that I have written over the years, one of the most challenging has turned out to be the now-weekly serial The Collapse.

I use the word "challenging" rather than "difficult" advisedly.  Writing has never been "hard" in that sense for me; while I try to plan out my writings more in advance to give some time for editing (e.g., actually improving my writing), I have been known to write up a post in 30 minute period. Part of that of course is inspiration:  Sometimes the words and ideas are there, sometimes they are not.  

The Collapse, as such, is fiction, and therefore has the challenges of any fictional work.  One has to "invent" characters and geography.  One has to write situations in such a way that they are somewhat believable.  

The surprising thing - surprising in that I did not expect it to happen to me - is what other writers have noted:  at some point the characters and situations take on a life of their own.  Sometimes the situations are easy to write about.  Sometimes they are incredibly hard, in that they deal with things that are either distasteful or downright jarring to the soul to write about.

There is no "overarching narrative" for the story as well - which seems to make it more difficult to write than perhaps a typical book with its "Act 1, Act 2, Act 3, Conclusion" mapping.  If anything, the year and the seasons are as much of the narrative device as anything.  

Imagine my shock to realize that for something without an overarching narrative, I have been writing this since 2018.

As has probably been clear if you have been reading for a while, this is not a "how-to" series on how to navigate societal collapse; there are far more elegant and practical works out there and I myself have almost no experience in that matter.  In some ways, perhaps, that may explain why narrative devices appear and then fade into the background - although I suspect in a world where one is reduced to the basics, lots of good ideas fade as well.

Instead, it was intended as (and still remains, so far as I can tell) more of a personal memoir of one man as such an event occurs.  Sometimes there are specific events (just like in real life), but sometimes there are simply random thoughts and observations, the sorts of things that come to one when gets home from any day of work; how often have I come home and pondered on events of the day, not thought about world changing ideas.  I just as much wonder about the leave in my garage space and how they got there when I pull in as I do about perhaps more important events.

Is there an "end" to The Collapse?  Frankly, I have no idea.  I have taken at least two "breaks" in writing, but in both cases it appears that Seneca's story was not done.  

For now, he continues to write from just over a horizon of possible, with I serving as his amanuensis.  To be honest, I am always as interested as you are in what comes next.

The Forty-Five Turns Twenty

 TB!  TB!

(Me, careening into a wall in the dark to get to the computer):  What is it, HAL?

TODAY!  TODAY IS THE DAY!

HAL, it is 0200 or a little after. Hardly the time to be raising an alarm unless there is some reason to, right? (Rubs sleep out of eyes, starts thinking of the likelihood I will make it back to sleep before I have to get up)

THE FORTY-FIVE TURNS TWENTY TODAY!

(Me, now trying to operate a keyboard, knowing that as I engage the higher brain functions I am definitely not getting back to sleep)  Well, look at that.  It really has been twenty years.

WE DID A GREAT JOB GETTING HERE!

If by "we", HAL, you mean me, then I have no idea how this happened.  

MOSTLY BECAUSE OF ME!

Sure HAL, why not?  You as much as anyone, I suppose.  Any chance you can reach out to the coffee maker and start it? Looks like I will just be up for now.

YOU KNOW I AM NOT CONNECTED.

No, of course you are not.  Why do you not just stay here then, and let me see which flavour of coffee suits my 0-way-too-early-in-the-morning mood...

---

Somewhat to my own shock, I see that (HAL aside) this is actually the 20th anniversary of this spot on the InterWeb.

To be fair, the first three years were not a lot to write home about.  My first half of 2005 has a total of four, count them, four posts.  And the total for those first three years was a whopping 79 posts.  For reasons unknown to me, they seemed to have picked up after that.

According to the magical statistics that Blogger supplies we sit somewhere around 5500 posts, between 24,000 and 25,000 comments, and something over 2,000,000 views  (a super strong "thank you" to the bots and spammers that made that number possible).  How many words, I cannot begin to guess.  Most likely,  more than are necessary.

Thanks for being along for the ride.  With any luck, another twenty years is not totally out of the question.

The Collapse CXCV: Thanksgiving +1

 27 November 20XX+1

My Dear Lucilius:

Pompeia Paulina pointed out this morning that it was Thanksgiving Day.

I confess that such a thing had completely escaped me – November has been involved beyond measure and the calendar days have come to mean less and less, especially since there is no real time-frame anymore, other than the fact that it is Winter now and Spring will come at some point (but not soon enough).

Unlike the classic Thanksgiving Day postcards and pictures of long ago, with Pilgrims sitting under flaming Autumn foliage with the golden brown of withering grasses behind them, we are sitting under grey skies, cold to the point of not going out unless one must. We have had a new flurry of snow in the past two days and even now, the sky continues to insult us by putting out just enough snow to make it clear that this is just one more snow day.

Chores were done as quickly as possible. Given that it was, at least at one time, a public holiday, I gave myself the gift of an afternoon inside.

On a bit of a lark, I paged back to the entry from last year at Thanksgiving. It was quite a different event: The Collapse was still a relatively fresh thing and there remained in my mind some vague sense that this, too, would pass. It speaks of playing Vivaldi – ironic given the letter I had just sent you. Even as I write this, I consider playing him again – but no, the power draw would be too great, especially given the fact that it is Winter and the ability to recharge is so limited.

I showed my letter to Pompeia Paulina. She smiled when she read it, the dinner of dried fish and dried blueberries, that putting on a second piece on the fire and playing music were considered luxuries even then. I asked her what she and Stateira were doing last year.

She laughed. About the same, she replied. There was so much that was unknown at the time, they did similar things. Except, of course, have Young Xerxes over for dinner.

Should I run over and see if they want to come in, I said? I have no idea what we actually had, but surely there was enough for four.

No need, she said. She had checked in with Statiera yesterday – this was, after all, their first Thanksgiving together married and they thought they might take the day to themselves.

As, she pointed out, it was ours as well.

The Thanksgiving meal was quite similar this year to last, livened up a bit by two pieces of dark chocolate which, so far as I know, is the last of this substance West of anywhere. The drink, mint tea, was pulled from leaves dried earlier in the year. There was no music for ambiance and with the daylight fading so early, candles and the fire place had to do for lighting. The company, though, was exquisite.

Although much has changed, I still have a great deal to be thankful for. Including you, old friend.

Happiest of Thanksgivings. May we all remember that which we have had and that which we still have with gratitude, never with regret.

Your Obedient Servant, Seneca

2025 Switzerland/Germany: Basel Minster (IV): Stone and Glass

 The tomb of Gertrude Anne of Hohenberg (A.D. 1225-1281).  In A.D. 1253-1254 she married Rudolf of Habsburg.  By this marriage and by Rudolf's election to the office of King of the Romans, she became Queen Anne as well as the progenitor of the House of Habsburg.  She was buried in Basel with the remains of her youngest son Charles; they were later transferred, first to Saint Blaise' Abbey in Baden-Württemburg Germany and then to Saint Paul's Abbey in Carnithia, Austria.

2025 Switzerland/Germany: Basel Minster (III), Windows And Walls

 Basel Minster has some spectacular stained glass window:

On the floor beneath the main church (not accessible), there are still walls with original painting on them: