Dec. 7--For Mike Mosner, a two-toned town home looks like trouble.

"It's a hell of a situation," said Mosner, a 66-year-old retiree, gazing across his street in Oakdale.

He noticed how the first floors of the nearby buildings have been exposed for two years, the lumber weathering to a pale grey. It contrasted with the brown of the fresh wood on the partially completed second floor.

"Who is going to finish them? The economy of the whole country is in the toilet. What builder would touch them?" he asked.

"City hall is right there" -- Mosner waved across a street -- "and here this crap sits."

In a Main Street sign of a Wall Street crisis, a new phenomenon is spreading across the Twin Cities -- the abandoned suburban development.

The nation's financial crisis -- on top of the housing crisis -- has silenced the hammers in the suburbs. Uncompleted housing projects are scarring city after city like the weeds that grow among them.

Andover officials are dealing with three undeveloped developments.

"It is a real headache for us," said city manager Jim Dickinson.

One Woodbury project features a mansion with an accidentally magnificent view -- because for two years no homes have been built to block it. In the driveway, a Grecian statue appears to be cringing at a sign advertising a foreclosure auction.

Next to it, the 55-unit Highland Knolls project has been untouched for more than a year.

There is no statewide tally of

delayed or abandoned projects. The reasons for the empty-neighborhood syndrome vary -- builders go bankrupt, developers can't borrow money or builders decide to wait until the recession ends.

But one indicator of stress on the industry is that membership of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities has dropped 13 percent in one year, with officials attributing about half of the loss to the housing crisis.

Another is that annual housing starts in the metro area have dropped 75 percent since the 2005 peak.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

Grim as the news is, there are some winners.

One is Dean Marquette, owner of DerCon Construction Services of Blaine. He has developed a specialty -- finishing uncompleted projects. His business has doubled in one year.

"It is weird. I know a lot of people are hurting, but when I look at my books, I feel really blessed," said Marquette, who is finishing the exteriors of the Oakdale town homes, leaving the interiors for a future owner to finish.

Other winners are homebuyers.