During a speech I gave late last week In Syracuse, I asked the audience of about 200 land surveyors whether they thought the country was moving in the right or wrong direction. Only one 30-something woman meekly raised her hand half way up in the air to support a positive view, everyone else emphatically signaled a gloomy outlook, accompanied by hang dog looks and furrowed brows.

Maybe it´s not surprising that surveyors aren´t feeling real good these days-they are part of the real estate middleman group that´s suffered a drastic and ongoing decline in business and income. Brokers, appraisers, transaction executives and lawyers are all part of this unfortunate crowd. Few deals and fewer new development projects translate into more twiddling of thumbs than measuring lot sizes.

When I got to Florida the next day for some more meetings, the temperature had finally warmed up there after a severe winter chill, but folks were no more optimistic. Along the coasts transaction activity on condos and homes seems to be picking up as cash investors circle bargains in prime waterfront locations. The more inland you go, the less buyer interest, the more foreclosures, and the greater the property depreciation. A lack of recent rain leaves brown patches across the landscape mirroring desolate moods.

Driving across Alligator Alley, Rush was ranting about Obama´s responsibility for a "slow response" to aiding Haiti (as if this guy ever gave a flip for downtrodden Haitians) and relishing the possibility that a Republican might win Teddy K.´s senate seat to sink health care reform. Later in the day, a top local real estate broker informed me there were "40 million Muslims in America" and their mission is to propagate quickly and destroy the country from within. Over drinks, a real estate investment executive complained about foreign aid, welfare, and bailouts-"we should have let all those banks fail," subsequently adding: "When are we going to do something about all those illegal immigrants getting free care in our hospitals?"

Then at dinner, the son of friends in his 20´s with an engineering degree recounted how he lost his job working for a construction firm. We all talked about how recent college grads can´t find jobs and how others who found them have been laid off and have few prospects. We didn´t get around to discussing the bleaker outlooks for folks without college degrees and men in particular-one in five is unemployed.

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Jonathan D. Miller

A marketing communication strategist who turned to real estate analysis, Jonathan D. Miller is a foremost interpreter of 21st citistate futures – cities and suburbs alike – seen through the lens of lifestyles and market realities. For more than 20 years (1992-2013), Miller authored Emerging Trends in Real Estate, the leading commercial real estate industry outlook report, published annually by PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Urban Land Institute (ULI). He has lectures frequently on trends in real estate, including the future of America's major 24-hour urban centers and sprawling suburbs. He also has been author of ULI’s annual forecasts on infrastructure and its What’s Next? series of forecasts. On a weekly basis, he writes the Trendczar blog for GlobeStreet.com, the real estate news website. Outside his published forecasting work, Miller is a prominent communications/institutional investor-marketing strategist and partner in Miller Ryan LLC, helping corporate clients develop and execute branding and communications programs. He led the re-branding of GMAC Commercial Mortgage to Capmark Financial Group Inc. and he was part of the management team that helped build Equitable Real Estate Investment Management, Inc. (subsequently Lend Lease Real Estate Investments, Inc.) into the leading real estate advisor to pension funds and other real institutional investors. He joined the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the U.S. in 1981, moving to Equitable Real Estate in 1984 as head of Corporate/Marketing Communications. In the 1980's he managed relations for several of the country's most prominent real estate developments including New York's Trump Tower and the Equitable Center. Earlier in his career, Miller was a reporter for Gannett Newspapers. He is a member of the Citistates Group and a board member of NYC Outward Bound Schools and the Center for Employment Opportunities.