Sometimes making lemonade out of lemons is easier said than done. At least that's the takeaway from an interview with Ellen Wickersham, who's the head of parkland acquisition at Invest Atlanta (the city's econ development agency). With large swaths of the city hit hard by the foreclosure crisis starting around 2008, it seemed like the perfect opportunity for scooping up cheap real estate and converting it into parkland where the city needs it most. Except figuring out exactly who owns that cheap real estate - and if they're even around - has been no easy task. It's to the point where private investigators are being hired to track down the phantom owners. In one word: mucky.
· Foreclosure Crisis Opens and Closes a Treasure Trove of Parks [The Atlantic Cities]