The urban sprawl today, is incomparable to the 1950 urban sprawl.

In the 5o's, a third of cottage type homes were owner built. The owner and his family occupied a shed built in the back yard, with council permission for short term occupancy permission, while the construction continued.

The entire process was overseen by the local building inspector. Building specifications could be obtained at the local news agency, or the council office, ensuring conformity and safety standards were met.

Sewage connection was a rarity, but running water was ensured by the developer, conforming to local government standards.
Where did all that go wrong?

Effectively, it came crashing down with the rise of snobbery. New estates were allowed to classify higher standards of construction with covenants, such as mandating external brick. Prohibitions on fences, and generally dictating unnecessarily expensive standards to potential owners.

The rise of affluence has killed the hopes of many aspirational new home owners.
The same crowd of which this author complains, dictating terms for new housing developments, and sniping at the suburban dweller.

I can't stand city apartment living. you have to be a certain type of person to even consider such a boring lifestyle.

Suburbanites always have something they need to do, mow the lawn, clean out the gutters, throw ab ball for the dog, feed the cat, take the kids to the park, or go for a jog.

Alternately living in a city apartment you only have the gym, [what horror] coffee shop or restaurant to relieve the utter boredom. Those plastic people who like them will never understand real life.

The white flight happening now's destroying a lot of agricultural land and in a much worse way than the housing estates did.
The housing estates only impacted those few properties bordering them but the loss was for the gain of hundreds or thousands of affordable family homes.
Now with white flight building on the odd small blocks in the agriculture areas the surrounding properties all lose amenity to that one house.

I must say that I never understood (and still don't) the lifestyle of the latest generation of "plastic" people.
Then again I'll never understand people.
Then again, I am different from the "norm".
To explain, I never understood, and still don't, the absolute need for having a property which forces you to do things to it continually when all you want to do is rest or something, anything, more productive.
I hear people say they like or enjoy gardening and other mundane, meaningless pursuits.
Psychologically speaking it shows how shallow and lacking you are that you spend your time doing something over and over again with little or no actual benefit.
Oh sure, the place looks good; for a very short time, then your at it again, and if you don't attend to it, you will be criticised from one end of the street to the other for making the whole street look "bad".
No, as for my take on life, I have much preferred to put my time into a more productive and fruitful lifestyle or pursuit.
From a young age my time was spent in a workshop, pursuing more profitable/gainful endeavours.
As a "hands on" designer, I designed and built, even our current house with age and lifestyle in mind.
Whether young or old, if your house is all you have to show for your life, good for you, it is an appreciating asset after all.
I took the other road, and my abodes changed with me and were age relative.
In other words, when you are young and physically viable, you can do anything, but as you age you have to be more selective, and this was reflected in the style and functionality of my homes.
Basically as I got older I got lazier, thereby making the house less and less a dependent, which in my case was pretty much all my adult life.
So my latest home pretty much looks after itself.
No lawns, potted plants (few), and so it is that our homes and needs change along with us as we age.

Levittowns of today will need to come with myriad recharge stations and monorails etc. So we just don't create another class of postcode poverty and folks needing to drive everywhere to get somewhere?

Will need to be connected from the get-go to fibre to the home and very rapid rail systems, affordable electricity and affordable desalinated water!

Apart from that and the roll-out of local schools, hospitals, industrial estates and their own CBD's, to service these new intended communities. They're probably a very worthwhile idea, right now and a great way to pay back the next generation by creating housing aimed at them and their operations, particular as they are going to be the generation paying down the debt we've created during the intended recovery etc.

And we need to understand all the implications of who and what survived the financial rigours of the Great Depression and why. And roll these things out as housing co-ops backed by governments. And serviced by government-built infrastructure as the first cab off the rank!

Gotta put the horse before the cart and end forever the ability of around 40% of our guest corporations to avoid paying tax on profits earned here. Any system that does just that will ensure we can afford these good ideas and their implementation Also understand the actual top tax actually paid as dollars to the treasury after all the write-downs/write-offs etc, for the year ending 2017, was just 13%!

So, an unavoidable 15% flat tax would not only collect more revenue, but ensure the current avoidance is discontinued and given the scale of the current legalised avoidance, more than double internal revenue!
Alan B.

Seeing that people are actually getting more stupid instead of less, I'm afraid the show will implode before it gets better !