Tag: Recession

Please allow me to introduce Slab City to the Slabbed Nation.

Near the shores of California’s Salton Sea, where the road gives way to barren desert, is a place where many have gone to park their troubled lives.

Bill Ammon has lived in what’s known as “Slab City” for 13 years.

“This piece of property is public-owned,” he said, “and it’s so useless, so desolate, that nobody wants it and they let us be here.”

Slab City takes its name from the concrete slabs it sits on — all that’s left from a World War II training camp. Now it is home base for more and more people who can’t afford to live anywhere else.

There are nearly 2,000 people living in Slab City, many refugees of the Great Recession.

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A Sign of the Times…

What is amazing to me is that we have not seen more news like Bailey’s Lumber announcement they are shuttering their Gulfport store. Residential construction has been in the tank for about a year now across the vast majority of the coast due to insurance affordability issues.  Now with the credit crisis and economic slowdown in full bloom, the few pockets of activity left in Eastern Harrison/Western Jackson counties are also suffering.

There is a good bit of analysis I could add to Ryan LaFontaine’s story but I won’t since I’m feeling lazy.  😉  Mr Bailey is absolutely right that Home Depot and Lowes are not his company’s problem. Contractors with little to no backlog would be the cause IMHO.

The slumping economy is forcing one of the Coast’s lumber giants to shut its doors, despite much post-Katrina construction left to be done in South Mississippi.

Bailey’s Lumber and Supply, a major player in construction in the Southeast since 1951, will soon close its Gulfport location as a belt-tightening move to help weather the current economic storm. Continue reading “A Sign of the Times…”