????在馬德里以北200公里，省會城市薩拉戈薩坐落在一片半干旱平原上，拉穆埃拉是這里的一座郊區小鎮，被大片大型風電設備包圍著。人們也許會想，在這片唐吉訶德的故土，這些龐然大物在警示著和幻想作戰的危險。

????漫步于拉穆埃拉街頭，不久后人們便會發現他們已經離開了小鎮。離鎮中心僅兩個街區的地方，古香古色的石頭房被一棟棟由柵欄隔開的完建公寓樓所代替，而公寓樓里卻是空空如也。再往前走，錫制柵欄環繞著沒有窗戶的聯排別墅和公寓。而在小鎮遍布矮樹的邊緣地帶，一棟建造了一半的混凝土骨架佇立在那里，里面的樓梯卻不知通往何處。

????拉穆埃拉城市規劃部的工作人員恩尼克?巴拉奧稱，在這個只有5,000人的小鎮中心，已建成的空置房屋可容納約2,000人，而未建成的可容納1,000人。

????49歲的維克多?卡納雷斯指著自己聯排住宅對面大門緊閉的建筑說：“空置房太多了；謝天謝地，人們沒有像去大城市那樣蜂擁至這個小鎮，那里有很多人會擅自占用空房。” 受小鎮高質量的生活條件吸引，卡納雷斯于1999年將家人從薩拉戈薩搬到了拉穆埃拉，那時，小鎮擁有2,500名居民。

????與西班牙的很多城鎮一樣——更不用說內華達、佛羅里達、加州和愛爾蘭——拉穆埃拉在90年代和00年代期間也曾掀起一輪房地產投機熱。市長瑪利亞?維多利亞?皮尼拉（María Victoria Pinilla）——自受到與房地產相關的腐敗指控之后——利用從風電和房地產開發所獲得的資金，修建了一個斗牛場、一個音樂廳、一個體育館、一個觀鳥園和三個博物館。（該鎮已關閉的旅游辦公室所貼的告示稱，這些博物館“因技術原因暫時關閉”。）

????拉穆埃拉并非個例。即使西班牙房價自2007年高峰以來下跌了38.9%（房地產咨詢機構Tinsa提供的數據），待售新房仍有約75萬套。既然地產泡沫已經破滅，那么接下來問題在于，過剩的房屋將何去何從。問題的答案或許很簡單，卻很殘酷：拆除。

????布魯金斯研究所（Brookings Institution）城市政策項目研究員阿蘭?馬勒克（Alan Mallach）說：“如果在可控時期內，例如5年內，沒有出現房屋需求，那么封存這些房屋的成本，哪怕是已完建的房屋，如果要保持它們在未來的耐用性和可居住性，是非常昂貴的。如果你不封存的話，那么這些房屋就會逐漸變成其周邊居民的眼中釘和心頭痛。”

????盡管我們難以弄清空置房屋會對經濟造成什么樣的影響，克里弗蘭德聯邦儲備銀行（Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland）最近所做的研究表明，如果一棟房子500英尺（約152米）范圍內存在空置房屋，那么房屋售價至少會被拉低1.4個百分點。

????當然，對于政客來說，做出拆除房屋的決定是危險的，尤其是在危機當頭的情況下，因為很多人由于喪失抵押贖回權而失去了自己的住宅。這或許解釋了很少有過剩房屋被拆除的原因，以及西班牙房屋問題監管部門并未將拆除作為首選解決方案的原因。

????西班牙成立了一個“不良資產銀行”，即Sareb，旨在接管金融危機期間產生的不良房地產資產。目前，該行不良資產存量達到了約9萬套不動產（包括5.5萬套房屋）。該行已撥出1.03億歐元（約合1.4億美元）作為拆除資金，但Sareb傳播負責人蘇珊娜?迪亞茲（Susana Díaz）強調，該機構并沒有確立明確的拆除計劃，而且絕不會拆除具有價值的房屋（然而，這一聲明并沒能阻止該國拆遷公司招兵買馬的步伐）。

????On the outskirts of Zaragoza, a provincial capital on the semi-arid plains 200 miles north of Madrid, fields of huge electricity generating windmills surround the tiny town of La Muela. One might think that, in the land of Don Quixote, these giants would serve as a prosaic warning of the dangers of engaging in flights of fancy.

????Walking the streets of La Muela, it quickly becomes clear that they have not. Barely two blocks outside of the village center, historic stone houses give way to condo complexes that have been finished, boarded up, and left empty. Further out, tin fences surround windowless townhouses and condos, and at the edge of town, where it returns to scrub, a half-finished concrete skeleton features stairways to nowhere.

????There is finished, empty housing for some 2,000 people and unfinished housing for another 1,000 just in the center of the 5,000-person town, according to Enrique Barrao of La Muela's town planning department.

????"There are so many empty houses; thank god people haven't gone in like in the big cities, where there are squatters," says Victor Canales, 49, as he gestures at a shuttered building across from his row house. Canales brought his family from Zaragoza to La Muela in 1999, attracted by the quality of life of the small town, which then had about 2,500 residents.

????Like many towns in Spain -- not to mention Nevada, Florida, California, and Ireland -- La Muela tried to ride a speculative real estate boom during the 1990s and 2000s. With money coming in from the windmills and real estate developments, mayor María Victoria Pinilla -- since brought up on real estate-related corruption charges -- built a bullring, a concert hall, a sports stadium, an aviary, and three museums. (The museums are "temporarily closed for technical reasons," according to a sign on the town's tourism office, which is also closed.)

????La Muela is not alone. Even with a 38.9% drop in home prices since a 2007 peak, according to real estate consultancy Tinsa, there are still about 750,000 unsold new housing units in Spain. Now that the bubble has popped, the question is what happens to all the excess housing. And the answer to the problem may be simple, and ugly: demolition.

????"If you can't anticipate demand for housing within a manageable period, say five years, the cost of mothballing houses, even completed ones, to keep them serviceable and habitable for the future is very expensive," says Alan Mallach, a fellow in the Metropolitan Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. "And if you don't, it gradually turns into an eyesore and blight for people who live around it."

????While it's hard to pinpoint the economic effects of vacant houses, a recent Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland study finds that having a vacant property within 500 feet reduces a house's selling price by at least 1.4%.

????Of course, making the decision to demolish housing is dangerous for a politician, especially during a crisis when many people have lost their homes to foreclosure. This may explain why so little excess housing has been demolished and why those overseeing Spain's housing problems are not touting it as a top option.

????Spain set up a "bad bank," known as Sareb, to take over bad real estate assets during its financial crisis, and it now has an inventory of about 90,000 properties (including 55,000 housing units). The entity has set aside 103 million euros (about $140 million) for demolition, but Sareb's communications head, Susana Díaz, stresses that the entity has no definite plans for demolition and would never demolish housing with value (though this hasn't stopped the country's demolition companies from preparing for business).