Take the place I’ve been assigned to for the last few months. Whispering Oaks. Fourteen years ago it was going to be one of the largest, most prosperous new gated communities on the East Coast. A thousand acres with homes ranging from 2,000 up to 10,000 square feet. At its center was a massive “clubhouse” building with rooms for meetings and parties, its own gym, an indoor swimming pool and movie theater, to say nothing of the tennis courts, three more exterior pools, and a top-of-the-line 18-hole golf course scattered around the rest of the property. It even had a small gourmet grocery store on one corner of a little cobblestone street that I think was going to be filled with fancy cafes and boutiques. I can’t even imagine the money that was sunk into that place, much less how much more the builders stood to make.

There were plans for four hundred homes in the initial building phase, and by 2006 they had already built over a hundred of them. A few were built on spec as model homes to show prospective buyers, but most had been bought and built to order within the confines of the dozen or so approved house plans that were available to new owners. From what I’ve heard, the property was like an anthill back then—the constant flow of workers mixed with people checking on the progress of their dream home being built, if they hadn’t already moved in.

But when the housing collapse happened that year, new home buyers slowed to a trickle. Banks weren’t giving out loans like they once had, and the constant buzz of activity slowed to a hum and then to silence. The sixty or so families that were already out there found themselves surrounded by empty, partially-built houses and bare lots that weren’t being as meticulously maintained as they had been just a few months before.

The “clubhouse” went from being fully staffed and brightly-lit to being closed most of the time. According to a note on the front door, the company apologized for the inconvenience, but assured everyone the reduced hours and services were a temporary necessity during “restructuring”. That was apparently greasy rat-speak for bankruptcy.

Over time, the people who were left at Whispering Oaks figured out it wasn’t going to get any better there. Even if the economy and housing market improved, who was going to buy an overpriced house in a closed off, increasingly run-down and barren ghost town?