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Posts published in “Day: April 11, 2009”

Foreclosure patterns

April 11, 2009

The Puget Sound Business Journal this week pulled together a large take-out on foreclosures around King County, and used the statistics on foreclosures to map the areas around King where foreclosures were especially high or low.

High? Maple Valley and Tukwila, notably high-growth areas over the last decade. The highest concentrations of foreclosures in the county, in fact, run roughly in the south-county triangle between those communities and Federal Way. Seattle itself? Less so; and most of the really rural areas in east-county aren't especially foreclosure hotbeds either.

These are mostly new houses.

Amtrak hopes

April 11, 2009

In the southern Idaho-eastern Oregon area there's been hope, for a long time, of restoration of the old Pioneer trim passenger line on Amtrak. It's been a distant hope, even as legislators such as Idaho Senator Mike Crapo have pushed for it. But now comes a sign that maybe, possibly, it might happen.

Financially, the line was a loser ($20 million a year) when it was shuttered in 1996. But times are changing, and prospects - especially in the new economic-political environment - are changing. Last year Congress ordered a rethink on passenger lines in Amtrak, and the Associated Press is reporting now that Pioneer is currently under evaluation.

Cards and letters time.