Banks are Demolishing Homes Now

Yes, it's central Cleveland, but it's happening elsewhere, and with a real turn around in house prices years away, this will spread:

Cleveland — The sight of excavators tearing down vacant buildings has become common in this foreclosure-ravaged city, where the housing crisis hit early and hard. But the story behind the recent wave of demolitions is novel — and cities around the country are taking notice.

A handful of the nation’s largest banks have begun giving away scores of properties that are abandoned or otherwise at risk of languishing indefinitely and further dragging down already depressed neighborhoods.

The banks have even been footing the bill for the demolitions — as much as $7,500 a pop. Four years into the housing crisis, the ongoing expense of upkeep and taxes, along with costly code violations and the price of marketing the properties, has saddled banks with a heavy burden. It often has become cheaper to knock down decaying homes no one wants.

The thing is that as bad as it is in the cities, when this happens in the suburbs, and the lifestyle in the far suburbs is not sustainable, there won't be the any sort of useful application for the abandoned land, the article mentions land banks creating things like common spaces and community gardens, are just going to sit and decay.

It will be like some suburban Cyberpunk novel.