The part that worries me most about the Foreclosing of America's new home abandonment phenomenon [1] is the effect on our schools. American public schools are largely financed by local property taxes. That's bad enough on its own—one of the most savage inequalities in the entire system: it means that if you can't afford to buy into a nice neighborhood, your child's "equality of opportunity" gets strafed. Now, a spiral unto apocalypse: what happens to the school systems in communities where the net assessed values of the homes has tanked?
Is anyone in Washington prepared to do something about this? Anyone?
Links:
[1] http://www.azcentral.com/community/chandler/articles/0728cr-foreclosed0728.html