Well, just like nearly everyone else, the Wizard lost some dosh in the recent stock market turmoil. The Wizard has taken a beating, however I have since learned that some people I know have taken a much heavier beating than I have. Life goes on.
Sigh...
However, that isn't the purpose of this epislte. Some weeks ago, I passed through my parent's neighborhood on the way back from a meeting I attended. Over the past few years, the neighborhood in which my parents live in, and where myself and my siblings were raised, has been experiencing a transformation. Nearly 40 years ago, my parents bought into a subdivision that had been built at the beginning of the 1950's. The houses of the area are typical of the era, being 1,200 - 1,500 square feet in size. In recent years, the people who have lived in the subdivision for ages, and whom I grew up with knowing as a boy and as a teenager, have either sold out, moved, or passed on. In otherwords, the neighborhood of my youth is going through a generational shift and is passing on. My parents and some others still live there.
What has resulted is that the newcomers have been buying up the old 1950's housing, doing tear downs, and have building massive new McMansions in their place. What has resulted is a very odd looking neighborhood where you have 50+ year old housing, such as my parents live in, situated right next door to 4,000 foot brand new houses. I am witnessing something that I thought I would never see. The neighborhood of my youth has flipped and is going upscale.
The Wizard has decided to try to capture this moment in time where the old is torn down in favor of the new. I have a few photos of the old houses in the neighborhood, but it seems that I am going to have to rely on Google Maps in order to capture some still images of houses that may be no longer there. I intend to walk around the neighborhood in the next few weeks and snap a bunch of photos of every house in the subdivision as the transition takes place. Then I will publish them at some point in the future. I will call it the project Going Home.
This project will capture the free market of Houston in slow motion action. There is no government agency condemnation involved, no zoning saying that mansions can't be built, or that the housing is somehow designated as a historical district so that the housing can't be torn down. The world changes and life goes on.
Somehow I never thought that the neighborhood of my youth would disappear before my very eyes, but at the same time I am excited to think that the neighborhood I grew up in has its best days yet to come.
Wizard