Mono County: 59% Vacancy Rate

John Seiler:

Here’s what’s really going on in California — while Gov. Jerry Brown, the Democrats in the Legislature and the government-worker unions are plotting how to tax us more to preserve plush union pensions. Reports Yahoo Finance:

American Ghost Towns of the 21st Century

There are several counties in America, each with more than 10,000 homes, which have vacancy rates above 55 percent….

Data from states and large metropolitan areas do not tell the story of how much the real estate disaster has turned certain areas in the country into ghost towns. Some of the affected regions are tourist destinations, but much of that traffic has disappeared as the recession has caused people to sell or desert vacation homes and delay trips for leisure. This makes these areas particularly desolate when tourists are not around.

The future of these areas is grim. Our research showed that many have sharply declining tax bases which have caused budget cuts. Forecasts are calling for the fiscal noose to tighten on them even tighter.

These are the American Ghost Towns of the 21st century.

One California county is on the list:

5. Mono County, Calif.

Number of homes: 13,912
Vacancy rate: 59%
Population: 12,774

Mono County sits near the Sierra Nevada and Yosemite National Parks. Ironically, Bodie, the official state gold rush ghost town, is in Mono County. Finance Director Brian Muir recently said he expected another property drop in property tax receipts. Like most of the other counties on this list, tourism is a major source of revenue for its economy.

Why aren’t our politicians working to create jobs in such places by cutting the massive weight of taxes and regulations that weigh down businesses and citizens? They don’t care about anything except their own venal interests.

For all they care, the whole state of California could become a ghost town. The environmentalist extremists, especially, would rejoice that no people were here to soil the environment.