The alarms should have rung long ago, not today when the stock market plunged 300 points on the news of dismal results coming from the nation’s top sprawl produces. It’s pretty disappointing to see that so much of the US economy is based on the growth of these development groups which continue to produce nothing but atrocious housing developments on the outer fringes of nearly American city. Its also ironic that what we consider to be an economic engine in our communities is also responsible for degrading our lifestyles, increasing congestion, straining our resources and with that likely costing us as taxpayers more in infrastructure needs and upgrades than the economic benefit we receive in return:

“Disappointing results from home builders including Pulte Homes Inc. and D.R. Horton Inc. — squeezed by a sluggish environment from home sales and continued defaults in subprime loans — weighed heavily on the market.”

An Excerpt from Suburban Nation, The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream:

“…The primary goal of the [housing] industry remains to build and sell individual houses as quickly and profitably as possible, to “blow and go,” as they put it…Homebuilders, land developers, and marketing advisers are all constituents that must be won over if the campaign against suburban sprawl is to succeed. Their participation will be meaningful in the long run only if it is driven by the profit motive, because in America at the millennium, ideas live or die based upon their performance in the marketplace….A higher standard of development will become common place only if it offers greater profits to those who practice it.”