Rouse Company Bought -- Big News for Real Estate Developers

Today is a big day for real estate developers, if only for dreaming. The total purchase price (including assumption of debt) is about $12 billion dollars. It would be just another big deal except that I live near some of their signature projects. One of them, the city of Columbia, MD, was a greenfield idea that they undertook to create a new vision of Amerucan suburbia. It is a series of connected villages with central greens and defined areas for community mingling and private strolling.

They've done other big projects, but I've admired them for the Columbia plan for a long time now. For anyone looking to make an impact on the world and combine their grand philosophical musings about ideal societies with the realities of city planning should look no further than real estate developing on a massive scale.