Post Gazette:

For years, home ownership has been seen as the surest path of rising into the middle class and the most significant source of savings for many families. So how could it be that buying a single-family home has made so many people in this country worse off?

The answer is simple, according to John Wasik, author of a recently released book that examines the housing crisis, "The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream."

"The whole premise of the ‘Cul-De-Sac Syndrome’ is we hit a dead end," he said. "We hit a wall of unaffordability. I want to convey the idea that we are building, selling and developing communities that are not sustainable."

Families who believed that they were getting the deal of a lifetime courtesy of low mortgage rates became victims of the syndrome: They borrowed more than they could afford, moved farther out from central cities and gambled on home appreciation.

(snip)

"Sprawling urban areas with no public transit or connection to a central city … will become ghost towns if high energy prices return and persist," he writes, adding that both scenarios are likely in a healthy economy.

My comment: As people lose jobs they lose their houses which exacerbates the already falling housing market creating a negative feedback loop. The comment about higher energy prices turning these suburbs into ghost towns is something I have been anticipating for a few years in light of peak oil. It may be that the recent economic downturn just temporarily delayed the inevitable

John Polomny
The Real Deal