I always used to turn to Mike when the news was full of record new housing start stats every month and ask, "When the hell are they going to have enough houses for everyone?" I mean, it had to become a saturated market at some point in time.
I think we had actually run out of qualified homeowners quite a while ago, and then Fannie and Freddie started turning a blind eye towards ability to repay. Once their standards fell so low, everyone else got onto the wagon, which eventually was rolling downhill with no brakes, and a cliff in sight.
Of course, housing starts drive durable goods like appliances (which aren't really very durabel anymore, are they?) There was a whole industry of interior decorating, and another of landscaping, and all the industries that supply them both, just to name two home-associated enterprises. When homebuilding hit the skids, so much of that stuff had to be on a slippery slope, too.
I, like you, am not sorry to see the sprawl of urban areas into rural ones slow or stop. I've always said that if we live where private businesses will run cable for TV or DSL, then we will have to move, since there will be too many people too close. I do think federal grant money will bring DSL to rural NC within the next seven years...by which time, I will be almost 65, so not much need for it for business reasons by them, I guess.
I hated to see that blue PVC pipe for water services laid out on the road shoulder a few years ago, since flimsy single- and double-wides would quickly follow. USDA Rural Development money was basically ruining farmland here, but those parts of the statutes have no teeth to stop the abuse. Made no sense to me....
