AUDREY'S MISSILES A weekly newsletter dedicated to the peaceful reform of the United States government. Housing Shortage California has other problems besides the power shortage. People need places to live. Some houses in the Silicon Valley of California were built to sell for $600,000 dollars each. They were snapped up. Other houses were recently offered for sale in the small town of Lodi in the Central Valley a on a first come, first serve, basis. People drove hundreds of miles and camped for days on the street where the houses were to be sold. Construction is booming. If a homeowner has a small construction job it is impossible to find a contractor to do it because they are all tied up with larger, more profitable, jobs. Along in the foothill area of the Sierra Nevada developers are scrambling to get permits to build more houses. Local residents circulate petitions in the hope of stopping the developers. All of this makes for a booming economy, right? Is there a downside to it? Some people think so. California is the food basket of the nation. Many of the places in the foothills where the new developments are planned are grazing areas for beef and dairy cattle. Some of the areas down father in the valley are prime agricultural land which is being used for orchards and vegetable crops. Say goodbye to those back yard tomatoes, vine- ripened strawberries, and tree-ripened peaches! And there are other problems. The best home sites have been taken. Houses built on hillsides tend to slide in wet weather. As the lands above the valley are stripped of ground cover (trees and grasses) they do not hold the Spring or storm waters, causing mud slides and flooding in the valleys below. Houses built along the coast tend to slide into the Pacific Ocean during storms. Houses built in the fertile valleys subtract land from agricultural production and use more than the space they occupy because new residents need more and wider roads, schools, police and fire protection, gas stations, and shopping centers. Perhaps all this is just poor planning. Maybe we should build more high rise apartment buildings in the cities where the infrastructure is already in place. But California is earthquake country, and high rises are deathtraps in an earthquake. Seismologists are unanimous in saying that it is not a question of whether or not California will have another major earthquake, but when. In Alaska, in March of 1964, there was a quake that was reported to have a magnitude 8.5, a measurement later revised to 9.2, probably the most violent earthquake ever recorded. It uplifted and changed the landscape in a area larger than the State of California! The affected land was sparsely populated with very few buildings and therefore few casualties, so there was not a great deal of publicity even at the time it happened. Right now the world is looking at what has taken place in western India. The death toll there from the recent 7.7 earthquake is reported at 17,000 bodies found, and many believe it is probably more like 30,000, with hundreds of thousands more injured and homeless. After a big shake there is always argument about building codes and they do help reduce casualties, but the fact of the matter is that even when good codes are enforced, no manmade structure will withstand a direct hit in a major earthquake. So we ask the question: "Where should we put all the new houses in California?" http://www.theus50.com/area.asp http://www.giseis.alaska.edu/Seis/64quake/Alaska_1964_earthquake.html READ THIS NEWSLETTER AND THEN GIVE IT TO A FRIEND. No copyright on the content of AUDREY'S MISSILES is claimed since it is our hope that the information in this newsletter will be copied and distributed widely. Topics covered are those which are not adequately treated on TV or in the press. If you live in the 209 calling area end a request to 209 847-7588 for a free fax subscription. E-mail is free anywhere. Paid subscriptions are not accepted. Comments may be sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] 02/16/01 Housing ========================================================================== [EMAIL PROTECTED] is an moderated maillist about government reform. To join or leave send e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] TO: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: -------------------------------------- (un)subscribe audreys-missiles Visit http://www.uwsa.com Support UWSA.COM at http://www.uwsa.com/UWSACOMintro.html
