U.S. road trip an eyeopener into true impact of recession I’m newly back this week from a road trip through California, and had been curious before we left whether we’d see evidence of the economic downturn during our travels. In fact, the signs of trouble were hard to miss. We were travelling routes that primarily took us through small towns, and it took but a glance at the lineup of grim legal notices in virtually every community’s local newspaper to grasp the impact the recession is having in the U.S. The April 8 edition of the Pahrump Valley Times, for instance, featured close to five pages of legal notices, almost all of them involving trustee sales of houses in foreclosure. The legal language of the ads made things sound very dry and orderly, but it didn’t take much to imagine the distress of the overwhelmed, indebted homeowner at the heart of every one of them. One California auction company handling foreclosures lists almost 1,400 homes for sale - and that’s just one company,...
I'm a communications strategist and writer with a journalism background, a drifter's spirit, and a growing sense of alarm at where this world is going. I am happiest when writing pieces that identify, contextualize and background societal problems big and small in hopes of helping us at least slow our deepening crises.