Alumni Magazine - Spring 2008 - (Page 22) TECHNOTES The Word on Foreclosures Huntsville Lab’s 30 Years of Service Photo: Gary Meek Housing expert defines mortgage crisis By Kimberly Link-Wills When dissecting the national foreclosure epidemic, Dan Immergluck frequently uses the Word of the Year, determined by ballot in January by the American Dialect Society, which defines “subprime” as an adjective that describes a risky or less-than-ideal loan, mortgage or investment. “Lots of folks think subprime loans were invented in the early part of this decade. They weren’t. They really started in substantial scale, these loans that are high risk either because of the borrower’s credit or because of features of the loan, in the early to mid’90s,” says Immergluck, a Tech associate professor in city and regional planning. “This first boom was really only about refinance,” he explains during a College of Architecture research forum on the U.S. mortgage crisis in March. “In the second boom, starting at the beginning of this decade, you saw a very big increase again in refinance lending but also a very big increase — just as steep if not steeper — in home purchase loans.” Immergluck, frequently quoted in the media, has published in such journals as Urban Affairs Review and Housing Policy Debate and is the author of the book “Credit to the Community: Community Reinvestment and Fair Lending Policy in the U.S.” In the five-county metropolitan Atlanta area in 2007, there were some 60,000 foreclosure filings — four times more than in 2000, Immergluck says. Georgia is in the top quarter nationally in foreclosures; California had the highest number of foreclosure filings in the nation last year. Other states harder hit than Georgia include Nevada, Michigan and Florida. “Are foreclosures going to continue to rise? It doesn’t really matter. They’re at such high levels Georgia Tech President Wayne Clough, left, and Stephen Cross, right, present a GTRI award to William McCorkle. “Our Huntsville Research Laboratory has delivered outstanding technical assistance and real innovation on a consistent basis.” — Stephen Cross GTRI director Thirty years ago in February, Georgia Tech research faculty established a presence at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Ala., to support U.S. Army missile technology. It was a good move. Since its start as “Huntsville Operations,” the laboratory’s impact has grown into a variety of defense fields. Its key location has helped enhance communication between its parent organization, the Georgia Tech Research Institute, and its military stakeholders. “Our Huntsville Research Laboratory is an extremely important part of our overall strategy,” says Stephen E. Cross, GTRI’s director and a Georgia Tech vice president. “It has delivered outstanding technical assistance and real innovation on a consistent basis.” >>> Through the Lens of a Tourist Ruth Dusseault, a visiting assistant professor in the College of Architecture, received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to photograph tourist attractions based on nature. The “Landscape of Tourism” collection includes photographs of Weekie Wachee Springs, where mermaids have performed underwater for decades. Dusseault focused on older attractions in Florida that “seized upon the region’s unique topography.” Other tourist attractions Dusseault photographed include Cypress Gardens, Homossassa Springs and Marineland. 22 Georgia Tech Alumni Magazine • Spring 2008
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