One hallmark of the American Dream — the single-family home — is dying as we know it.
And it's for good reason: The US needs more affordable housing.
"Around the country, many fast-growing metropolitan areas are facing a brutal shortage of affordable places to live, leading to gentrification, homelessness, even disease," Conor Dougherty writes in The New York Times.
The solution has long been to build upwards, erecting cheap condos and apartments in urban centers. But construction can no longer keep up with demand in many metros, so city planners are looking to single-family neighborhoods, valuable for their sprawl and low-density, for space to build out.
"It's an enormous problem, and it impacts the very course of America's future," Edward Glaeser, an economist at Harvard who studies cities, told the Times.
http://www.businessinsider.com/us-housing-crisis-homeownership-single-family-home-2017-12