*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************
Two vacant houses on Bola Court, in Jonesboro, sit as brick and mortar reminders of a foreclosure crisis that has hurt not just those who lost homes, but their neighbors, too. Home values in the Iron Gate community have dropped more than 20 percent and crime has ticked up. Southern Crescent Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Brenda Rayburn estimates one in five homes sit empty... Dan Immergluck, a Georgia Tech professor of city and regional planning who has studied the effects of foreclosure on communities, said borrowers are more likely to be foreclosed when they can’t sell their houses when they need to. “Each foreclosure has a significant impact on property values around it,” Immergluck said. “It’s not just dispiriting and worrisome [to homeowners], but it makes it harder for the housing market to work.”
