Story: Minnesota's New Ghost Towns
Propeller user: Buglover

If there's an epicenter to the country's real-estate downturn, it may be just be Wright County in Northwest Minnesota. As outlined in the recent three-part Star-Tribune feature "From Boom to Bust," the county, located 30 miles from the Twin Cities, is facing the brunt of the subprime mortgage meltdown and overbuilding.

Starting in the late 1990s, ambitious developers carved out large acreages, building inexpensive subdivisions and selling many of the units to buyers as investments. Today, these same homes in Wright County, which has a population of about 114,787, have gone unsold or been abandoned by buyers unable to pay their mortgage payments. This has in turn created an epidemic of "ghost-towns." As the Star-Tribune notes: "There are few trees or hills in this flat, predominantly rural county to obscure the evidence: Rows of vacant and unfinished homes, often with lockboxes on the front doors and foreclosure notices taped to the windows. Realtors call them 'see-through houses,' so empty of furniture and curtains that it's possible to see right through them."

Values in the country have declined 30 percent in the last year. (By comparison, in Los Angeles County, also considered a down market, the median sale price declined 18.5 percent from a year ago.) Wright County is bracing for 1,080 foreclosures this year, up 43 percent from a year earlier, according to the paper. On average, there are 43 foreclosures a week.

The Star-Tribune story is "a snapshot of what we're going through," says Zachary Adams, a real estate agent at Wright Sherburne Realty Inc. in Monticito. Adams, whose firm was featured the newspaper piece, has typically sold about 6,000 units in the Twin Cities area each year. But he estimates that there is now five to six years of inventory on the market. As to why prices climbed so high, especially in comparison to other regions, Adams is blunt: "These new prices were artificially inflated. Investors were appraising the homes as high as they could get them."

Putting aside the economic strain on the area--many towns had figured on tax dollars from the developments coming their way-- there is the simple matter of the abandoned homes. Inexpensively made and erected quickly, the houses are now a blight on the landscape. "There are no architectural features on the homes," says Adams. "If I am selling to bulk and all I am doing is selling to investors, then it's all about cost vs. sale price." (Some sample listings off the Wright County Minnesota MLS can be found here.)

Given that he's a homeowner in Minnesota, the story caught the attention of Propeller user Buglover. "I'm trying to move to the Twin Cities, " he writes in an email. "With what I can sell my current house for, I wouldn't be able to come up with a down payment. So the real estate market is becoming somewhat of an obsession for me."

But unlike those waiting for the market to recover, Buglover sees investment prospects in all those empty houses. "If I had the cash, I would grab up some of these deals, and just sit on them for a year or two, [waiting] for the market to come back around," he writes. Clearly, that's something that other Minnesotans have in mind. If there's anyone who stands to make money off the real estate downturn, it may be investors who can grab these foreclosed or abandoned properties, Adams told Propeller. "They'll purchase after the units are sold back to the bank."

Part 1: Minnesota's new ghost town
Part 2: Housing bets gone bad
Part 3: Housing downturn has suburbs stuck with the bills

It's called the "Nano," and it's being hailed as the world's smallest and cheapest car. At roughly $2,000, the newest addition to the Tata Motors fleet has certainly caught the eye of India's growing middle class, and will probably help to boost the national economy a bit. But that's pretty much where the good news ends.

Whenever I visit Kolkata--the West Bengal site of the Singur factory, where the Nano will be built--I wake up in the mornings hacking. I have what I affectionately call "The Black Cough of Kolkata." It's due to the smog. The person-to-particle ratio here is so high that it's not even worth counting. Just imagine that every single one of the 14.8 million residents has his or her own unfiltered tailpipe to suck on every minute of the day, and you'll have some idea of what the air quality is like. Exaggerating? No, sadly, I'm not.

In addition to an exploding population, Kolkata has a massive car-density problem, with approximately 1,421 cars per kilometer and no emissions standards. Whether you're driving or walking, there is no escape from the smog (unless, ironically, you're in a sealed car). Ancient, dilapidated taxis and buses spew viscous clouds of dark gray soot every time they accelerate, causing severe irritation to the eyes, throat and lungs. To even entertain the idea of adding more pollution to this city, especially to make a profit, is nothing short of taking out a contract on the life of every last resident.

According to Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group, the Nano's design was inspired by the sight of an entire family crammed onto a tiny scooter--not an uncommon scenario in India's urban landscape. He thought that if he could build a car small enough and cheap enough for the lower middle class to afford, such families could get around in greater comfort and safety. But despite Mr. Tata's best intentions, the Nano may more prove more harmful than helpful, adding to what is already an unbearable level of smog.

A better option would be for the city to invest in public transportation. But even if we stick to the single-car-for-the-Indian-upwardly-mobile-sector argument, it would make more sense for the powerful and influential Mr. Tata to put his energies behind an electrically powered Nano. The car's small size is ideal for Kolkata's narrow, windy streets. The electric cars could be charged at simple "pumps" that could be easily installed as an addition to an existing structure. And the cost of charging the car would be cheaper for the user than the current cost of petrol.

Of course, the city's electrical infrastructure is in desperate need of an upgrade. Kolkata residents currently suffer nightly blackouts in what's called "load-shedding," as power is shifted from one neighborhood to another. In theory, the same neighborhood isn't supposed to be deprived of electricity several nights in a row, but it happens quite a lot.

Still, the cost of an upgrade to the city's power grid would be much less over time than a Beijing-style "clean up" of the constant, growing pollution. And the new petrol stations that will be built to accommodate the gas-powered Nano will only worsen the traffic and pollution problems--not to mention the fact that there isn't much space left to build them in.

The world over, people are attempting various solutions to environmental problems. Most are hard. This one isn't.

After a series of cliffhanging negotiations, it appears that Rupert Murdoch has finally bagged his biggest prize yet. According to this dispatch, he has won control of Dow Jones & Company, including the jewel in the corporate crown, The Wall Street Journal. Over the last couple of days, the fate of the deal hung in the balance. Murdoch had made a generous offer of $60 per share--a premium of 67% to the price of Dow Jones stock prior to the Australian mogul's bid. Still, several key members of the Bancroft family, which has controlled the company for more than a century, held out.

What changed their minds? According to CNBC's David Faber, the mounting pile of fees from bankers and financial advisers may have factored in. If no deal went through, the Bancrofts would have to pick up the tab themselves. But now, the Dow Jones board has agreed to create a special fund for these expenses--and once the sale goes through, the bills will be passed directly along to Murdoch's News Corp. As Faber puts it, none too grammatically:


In his video on the WSJ site, Dennis Berman (an M&A reporter for the paper) rather delicately summed up the pluses and minuses of the deal. Yes, he acknowledged, a certain segment of the readership was less than enthusiastic about the iconic publication being swallowed up by Murdoch's News Corp. There was also at least one dispiriting moral to the story. "Is it about the legacy or about the money?" Berman asked. "As we see right now, the money won out." On the other hand, he noted that the paper would now be better capitalized, and enjoy an improved position in the global marketplace.



And how does the deal look to those outside the paper? In a recent piece in the New York Review of Books, newspaperman emeritus Russell Baker had some gloomy thoughts about a potential Murdoch stewardship:


Baker's distaste for Murdoch is hardly unique. Yet the News Corp proprietor has his defenders, who argue that he's gotten a bad rap. In a recent MSNBC piece, O. Casey Corr refused to join "the chorus of handwringers" who blame Murdoch for the decline and fall of Western journalism:


Identifying Murdoch as a symptom rather than a disease is not what I would call a ringing endorsement. But Corr is right in at least one respect: to finger Murdoch as the Great Satan of Media Conglomeration is to ignore how pervasive the phenomenon has become. Will the Wall Street Journal thrive under his banner (or thumb)? Will he leave this trophy acquisition to its own devices or effectively take control? Feel free to weigh in with your own thoughts and predictions!

What do you do if you already own a stake in Craigslist, but yearn for a bigger slice of the online-classified pie? If you're eBay, you launch a U.S. version of Kijiji, with the hope of rivaling the San Francisco-based market leader.

Already well known internationally, Kijiji launched in China in 2005, and currently does business in 27 countries. In terms of unique visitors, it is the most trafficked site in Canada, Germany, Italy, and Taiwan, according to eBay communications manager Jose Mallabo.

Like Craigslist, Kijiji, which launched in the U.S. earlier this month, has a relatively simple interface and a wide range of categories. The similarities aren't accidental: eBay purchased a 25 percent stake in Craigslist so "we could learn how to do this," says Mallabo. He adds that the new site is more user-friendly than the market leader, requiring only two pages to post an item for sale, versus up to seven pages on Craigslist.

Kijiji and its corporate parent won't interact on a technology level, but the two sites will complement each another. "Let's say you want to put a mattress on eBay," says Mallabo. "You can also list it locally on Kijiji. So this is on a more grass-roots level."

On some of its overseas sites, Kijiji charges posters or allows users to pay $1 fee to bump up a listing to the top of a page. The U.S. site hasn't ruled out charging users for listing certain items, according to Mallabo.

What does the management at Craigslist think of Kijiji? Largely due to its decision to forgo traditional web advertising, the 12-year-old market leader has already become the go-to place for listers, publishing 17 million classifieds every month and generating a reported $25 million in revenue last year. In an email to Newsquake, Craigslist CEO and President Jim Buckmaster said he is unfazed by Kijiji's entrance into the marketplace.

"We generally don't think in terms of competition, or concern ourselves with what other companies are doing," wrote Buckmaster. "Certainly there are hundreds if not thousands of companies offering online classifieds."

Meanwhile, users are slowly discovering Kijiji. "It's something different," says Kevin Emerson, a Los Angeles resident looking to sell his Buick Centurion. A friend recommended the site to Emerson, who says he had previously posted the car for six weeks on Craigslist, but had received no offers. It takes less time to post on Kijiji than on Craiglist, says Emerson. But has he gotten any offers on that car? Not yet, he says.

As is often the case, Second Life has been in the news over the past week. The celebrated online community continues to gain traction with real-world businesses and advertisers, who are eager to cash in on the theoretical population of 7.2 million residents--many with deep (if virtual) pockets. In this piece from the Raleigh News & Observer, David Ranii runs down just a handful of these early adopters, including Reebok, Nissan, and Intel. He also quotes a 3-D Internet Champion (an actual job title) at IBM, who wants Big Blue to climb aboard the Second Life bandwagon as quickly as possible:


Where there's money, of course, there's eventually litigation. And according to Eric J. Sinrod's piece in Silicon.com, the ball has already gotten rolling. In a recent case, Bragg v. Linden, a plaintiff sued the website's proprietors--Linden Research and CEO Philip Rosedale--for confiscating a piece of virtual real estate he had bought, freezing his additional assets, and subsequently barring him from Second Life itself.

Outside the Jacob Javits Convention Center, it was another scorching day in Manhattan. Inside, where an estimated 36,000 editors, booksellers, authors, journalists, and publicists would be commingling throughout the weekend, it was more tolerable--like a mild afternoon in the tropics. Welcome to Book Expo America, the publishing industry's annual romp, where the written word (along with an ocean of ancillary products) is the most desirable commodity on earth.


I spent three days roving the cavernous aisles, harvesting galleys, trinkets, pencils, tote bags, and at least one glass of champagne. I dodged in and out of panels, and when I could, I collared various industry bigwigs for a few moments of diagnostic chat. The first of these was Steve Wasserman, who's worn a good many hats during a long career in the trade: he ran both Hill & Wang and Times Books, then became editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, and is now a literary agent. What, I asked him, was the state of the industry? And where was the good news?