This is actually a pretty vapid article, particularly coming from The Economist. But, my real issue is with the title, “The End of the Dream?” Thus implying that the death of overbuilding of cheap tract houses somehow relates to the American Dream. I guess, in a way, it does, but that way is false.
The “American Dream” in quotes was a fabrication or a bastardization of the REAL American Dream, cooked up by the Levittowns of the world that outrightly suggested that to have a home and yard was to live like the British Royalty, even borrowing the aesthetic of the English Garden.
The actual American Dream however, is about the ability to make a better life for yourself and your family. People came in droves during times of impossibility of rising out of virtual caste systems.
You know how that was accomplished? Through hard work. Nothing was ever guaranteed but the opportunity, made way by our Constitution and the freedom set forth from that document. Most certainly not thru the lastest Housing pyramid scheme.
“Just sign on the dotted line and in two years your house will be worth double!”
Double the trouble.
