There are different ways to handle the foreclosure problem that has spread across the nation. Fairfax County, Va., has found its own.

Writer Amy Gardner with the Washington Post wrote earlier this week that the county will buy foreclosed homes and make them available to middle-income families. This will help alleviate two problems at once: providing affordable housing in a part of Virginia that has little, and reducing the number of vacant foreclosed homes on the market.

You can read the story here.

I have to say, this is an innovative way to addressing these serious issues. It may not be a longterm solution — the number of foreclosed properties can’t keep going up forever, so Fairfax County officials will have to come up with some other way to provide affordable housing — but at least it’s a creative attempt to deal with a problem.

The country’s wealthiest people live in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. At least, that’s according to a story written by Matt Woolsey for Forbes.com. Woolsey compiled a list of the nation’s richest counties. You can read it, and its accompanying story, here.

Fairfax County, Va., Loudon County, Va., and Howard County, Md., all suburbs of Washington, D.C., top the list as the three wealthiest counties in the country, based on 2006 median household income.

In Fairfax County, the median household income comes in at $100,318 a year. In Loudoun County, that figure is $99,371. In Howard, the figure is $92,260.

This is another great list from Forbes, whose editors delight in publishing such snapshots of American wealth. Just be careful reading it:  You may get a little jealous.