The Minneapolis-Saint Paul Craig's List is a colder and more lonely place these days as foreclosures reach a feverish pace in otherwise sleepy places like Anoka County [1]. Cul-de-sacs once buzzing with activity and excitement now lie fallow. Residents no longer stumble, drunk in hedonistic delight, from house to house, relieving boredom and ennui with the aid of wives, friends and longtime acquaintances in true bacchanalian tradition. No longer will promotions be celebrated with swing parties of legendary proportions, catered by P.F. Chang's [2] and lubricated with the unholy trinity of Franzia boxed merlot [3], Leinie's Honey Weiss, and industrial-sized tubs of AstroGlide on these subdued side streets. Reality has come crashing down in Maple Grove and points north, south, east and west, not in unwanted pregnancy or odd burning and itching sensations, but in the fuzzy math of adjustable rate mortgages and the American dream stretched too thin.

Traditionally bastions of stability, fiscal solvency, and late-night Cinemax-style [4] extra-marital hijinks, nearly 57 percent of foreclosures are now taking place in the suburbs. Anoka County alone accounted for 190 foreclosures in January. So where will these stricken swingers live? Will they venture bravely forth into the city they fled, seeking low rents and a more diverse group to foist pasty white love handles and a bottle of Reunite [5] on?

If they do, they stand to be disappointed. The foreclosure crisis has left a legacy of awesome ice flows [8] in suburban townhomes and ramblers, but in some neighborhoods of Minneapolis, the housing boom lured investors to take on project homes, renting them out until they could sell them at a profit. Of course, many of those same investors had all the home improvement and property management skills of an inbred ground sloth, and were twice as likely to spend their time quaffing low-end lambrusco in Maple Grove trying to get better acquainted with the ladies of Target's merchandising division as they were to maintain their properties. And after the bank foreclosed? Lenders have a habit of studiously ignoring properties, making them breeding grounds for squatters, thieves and R.T. Rybak [9], among other undesirables. As a result, the Greater Metropolitan Housing Corporation estimates as much as a third of north Minneapolis' foreclosed housing stock should be razed. And while I loves me some wanton destruction, that won't leave much room for the looming wave of homeless Anoka libertines.

Of course, there's a simple solution at hand. The Minneapolis city council is now backing extended NRP [10] funding, with two options currently on the table. Should either proposal pass, these funds could be used to create new zones on the North Side, loosely based on Gov. Pawlenty's now defunct JOBZ program [11]. These areas would be called Beneficial Lateral Orientation Job Opportunity Building Zones (BLO JOBZ). These zones would be used to cheaply resettle the suburban refugees looking for homes with a minimum of disruption to the region.

BLO JOBZ would assist in the gentrification of the North Side, as well as provide a soft landing for these happily humping bon vivants, who would likely be willing to work to improve the housing stock in the neighborhoods. Plus, if all goes well, as the newly displaced suburban population settles in the designated zones and gets friendly with their neighbors, a new era of racial and ethnic understanding could be reached through BLO JOBZ. Truly, a visionary program.