“Some houses were so bad that even the squatters had quit on them, and now only raccoons and rodents sought them out for shelter. And then, for reasons that no one in Peoria could fathom, people from all over America began snapping them up. By early summer, seven houses on this block … had sold to buyers from Los Angeles, San Diego, Long Island, Tacoma, Wash., and other far-off places.” Greg Jaffe in WaPo (gift article for ND readers) on how the quest for a place to call one’s own led a whole lot of people West Lincoln Avenue in Peoria, Illinois (via the information superhighway). The strange summer land rush in Peoria’s dying south end.