Allison Arieff's column in the Times ("What Will Save the Suburbs") yesterday asked the question- what do we do with these abandoned suburban/exurban developments that have gone bust? Here in Maine we have bits and pieces of this (not at the scale of a southwestern flat, warm, no basement sprawl) like newly built Topsham mega strip mall area catering to our drive to a big box needs as well as pockets of housing developments in southern Maine which stand empty or with one or two houses on the cul-de-sac to nowhere.
The simple answer is to set up a program which provides HUGE incentives to anyone willing to take the abandoned house with it's 10 yr. lifecycle and tear it down, recycle the materials, donate the land to the town as permanently preserved, and build a new row house inside a designated town center.
This way we preserve our open land- what makes Maine, Maine- and cap spending on infrastructure saving our municipalities and ourselves taxes and energy!
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