(Atlanta Journal Constitution) — When the real estate markets crashed in Dallas, Houston and other then-booming Texas cities two decades ago, the event helped ignite a financial meltdown and federal bailout that would look very familiar these days.
It also spawned a new term that could be applied locally: “see-through buildings.” Financed by banks and thrifts that later failed, the new skyscrapers and other buildings that flooded the Texas market had so few occupants that many looked practically transparent to passers-by.
Although granite and other materials often have supplanted those glass towers of the 1980s and 1990s and perhaps obscured their “see-through” aspect, many of Atlanta’s offices, retail centers and condominium and townhouse projects are similarly vacant.
