terra non firma

boom in south central

excuse me, not south central, now its "south LA" since the city has deemed the term "south central" too frightening - conjuring images of riots and gang warfare. the CS monitor covers the housing boom in the areas most affected by the 1992 riots, but unlike many redevelopment plans this one actually features affordable housing. (altho this area, too, is seeing rising property values and home prices).

developers have taken to hiring gang members as "security" to ensure construction goes smoothly, or as the csmonitor puts it: "to mitigate tensions between the gangs that demand to be employed when sites go up on their turf."

and in a town where trailer homes go for $1 million in malibu, south central's (yeah, I'm keepin' it real) home appreciation is starting to surpass both downtown and the city overall. as the article illustrates, "home appreciation for 14 zip codes of South L.A. grew by 38 percent from 2003 to 2004. While the downtown area and the city overall outpaced the appreciation in South L.A. from 1999 to 2002, South L.A. caught up in 2003 and surpassed both last year. The median price in 2005 was $318,000."

posted by marissa @ 9:30 AM