Lazy Sunday Service

A bit of a blizzard week tied up with commenting on the housing crisis. Tuesday gave a talk to the country's county engineers. Wednesday gave a talk to business students in Dublin. Thursday and Friday I was in Northern Ireland, but spent a lot of time on the phone talking to journalists and doing some radio interviews about the new Dept of Environment's survey of unfinished estates. They announced that there are 2,846 unfinished estates in Ireland consisting of 121,248 units, 43,053 of which are vacant or underconstruction. This is not the full extent of the level of oversupply, but rather the overhang of brand new, unsold houses in estates (doesn't include one-off housing or vacant secondhand housing). In a country the size of Ireland, 2,846 unfinished estates that are have little to no finance to be completed, and have issues of health and safety, security, anti-social behaviour, bonds, building control and planning permission compliance, is a sizable problem to deal with. See posts on Ireland After NAMA for more info. All of this meant I neglected this blog and my reading, missing my Forgotten Friday slot for 'Halo in Blood' by Howard Browne (writing as John Evans). I finished that yesterday morning. In the afternoon I bought 'Operation Napoleon' by Arnaldur Indridason and finished it this morning. Now onto Dave Zeltserman's 'Small Crimes' (and my MIT proofs).

My posts this week
New 'Map Reader' cover design
A 22 cent headache
We need to get past the denial phase - tax breaks did fuel the housing bubble
Key housing statistics concerning vacancy, oversupply, unfinished and ghost estates
Review of Wasters by Shane Ross and Nick Webb