Customer Reviews

The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome: Turning Around the Unsustainable American Dream (Bloomberg)

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John Wasik offers a clear interpretation of the current crisis: American greed, especially in terms of wanting bigger houses that they they cannot afford, commuting distance from a large metropolis. This is unsustainable.

Yet there is another narrative to tell. It would begin by noting that in 2007 and 2008 combined there were a total of around 3 mln home foreclosures. The average mortgage in the US is for $210k. In average foreclosure, banks recoup 75% of the mortgage. This is worse than average, so say banks recoup 50% and lose 50%. A loss of 50% on 3 mln mortgages is $315 bln. A serious loss, but not the trillions of dollars of the losses Wasik documents.

The losses derive from another source: leverage. When Bear Stearns funds were hit at the start of the crisis, they experienced about a 5% draw down in asset value. What made it an existential issue was the 34:1 leverage they employed.

By focusing exclusively on the US, Wasik may be missing the forest for the sake of the trees. Other countries had more leveraged households and larger increase in house prices. Most other major industrialized countries in Europe as well has Japan have experienced deeper contractions than the US.

Europe and Japan had different regulatory regimes than the US. Nor did they accept the American dream that is at the center of Wasik's narrative. Yet their financial woes and economic crisis is just as severe as the US and many European banks reportedly were more leveraged than large US bnaks.

Wasik grapples with America's pursuit of property. His arguments would be more persuasive if he would have come to grips with American historians, like Frederick Jackson Turner and the American frontier thesis.

Productive property was embraced as the source of independence and freedom. A land of small property owners--yeomen--was the Jeffersonian dream. The concentration of wealth and property in the US (and other advanced capitalist countries)makes the American dream unachievable for increasing numbers. One would never know that the disparity of wealth in America has rarely been greater from Wasik, or that there was a profound decoupling of wages from productivity and inflation.

Americans may have lived beyond their means, but key moral issue may lie in how those means were determined. Increasing it has taken two incomes in a household to maintain one's socio-economic status. Wasik ulimatately seems to blame what appear to be largely victims of a political economy that shifted the national income toward profits and dividends and away from wages and salaries.

For the majority of Americans who had finally amassed enough to get their "dream house", their world has largely collapsed under them. Understanding what exactly has happened in language they can understand, author and columnist John Wasik guides us through the present housing crisis from its beginnings - how we got from "there" to our dilemmas of the present day. The future? Wasik admits he doesn't have all the answers, but his insightful research into what can be done to "re-invent", re-design the American dream, fills us with a wealth of food for thought on what our homes and our lives can be in the future. A slim book packed with good reading throughout leaves us with more understanding of what is as well as more than a glimmer of hope for our own futures. I commend John Wasik!

Hmmmm... where have I read much of the same material before with a largely similar position staked out? Oh, yeah -- "The Death and Life of Great American Cities" and "Dark Age Ahead" by Jane Jacobs. The first is a modern "classic" frequently required for undergraduate reading in a number of disciplines, and the second certainly rivals if not actually outdoing "Cul-De-Sac" for polemics. Look, why not get the more original work(s)instead of this "me too" book (just a thought). By the way, I do happen to agree with much of what Jacobs (and Wasik) have to say, it's just that I don't feel Wasik's work has much of anything new to say that hasn't already been said before.

Although I am one of the people John interviewed in his book, I had not seen nor did I know what he was writing about. After reading the book, I see that he is right-on in his assessment of how we got into this housing mess and where it may very well lead us. We clearly need to change the way we live our lives, with the primary goal being how we use our natural resources. If we wait until the last minute to understand how important this is and only make the changes when it is too expensive to do anything else, it will be too late. It is very easy for us to think that there will be some magical solution to the challenges we face, but after 30 years of studying the alternatives, I am less and less optimistic this will be the case. We need to hear what John is saying and try to make a difference while we can.

Normally I would not have read this book, as the title suggests yet another anti-sprawl, anti-growth book, but its actually anti-bad-development and building book - urban or suburban. As an international planner of neighborhoods, I've heard about the death of the suburbs now for 3 decades. Other than the financial ills clearly explained in Johns book, the suburbs will continue to grow, not at the unrealistic pace of the past, but at a more sensible pace. The name cul-de-sac syndrome applies less to a physical cul-de-sac, but more as a metaphor for the mindless way we have built this country for over a half a century. The book gives a clear understanding of the financial systems that caused the bust, but mimics what we (as planners who designs new developments) have been preaching - that the future lies in a new way to develop and build. New planning methods significantly reduce both carbon footprint and construction costs of land development. New building methods can reduce the carbon footprint, but also significantly increase the home costs, making efficient and responsible housing a luxury that only the elite can possess. John delves into this issue very clearly and visions a new future. For the past decade we have promoted efficient housing for the masses, homes that the restaurant worker married to a teacher can afford. Smaller homes that when properly designed can feel very comfortable serving the families desire for space. Housing needed to change, but homes were selling so fast, builders seemed to not care - build one, move on to the next. Johns message is that we need to change to more responsible construction. The book is not so much anti-growth like other books, but responsible growth. While we may not agree on 100% of the issues, nobody in the industry as a magic wand that solves all issues. That said, the Cul-de-sac Syndrome sets a great foundation on where to start. We cannot make a new future unless we clearly understand the mistakes of the past.
Rick Harrison, Author of Prefurbia - Reinventing the suburbs from disdainable to sustainable. Inventor of Coving, BayHomes, Connective Neighborhood Design, Neighborhood Marketplace, and many other new planning methods, and winner of Professional Builders Achievement of the Year Award. Rick lives in a NAHB Green Certified Gold, and MNGreenstar certified home in Minneapolis.

Wasik's "Cul-de-Sac Syndrome" takes a delightfully interdisciplinary approach to looking at most every facet of the residential home construction business that is very readable for laypeople and academics. Wasik examines not only how the housing boom and bust came to happy but offers solutions and things buyers should consider before purchasing. There's much here to recommend the book including radical concepts such as how homeownership actually made some people poorer, why we continue to use largely 19th Century stick-building techniques for making homes, questioning the environmental sustainability of building, the problems of sprawl, and so on. Wasik argues for a fundamental rethinking of everything related to home construction, from where we build, density, techniques, and more. Wasik's belief is there is a potential Henry Ford of home construction waiting to be unleashed who could mass produce the component parts for reassembly on-site in far quicker time and at lower cost than present means. This has been tried on a small scale to some success and certainly the waste and high labor costs are indeed what drives up the cost of housing. While that certainly evokes images of Levittown where all the homes look the same and Fordism certainly carries certain negative connotations, the idea certainly does have some merit. Given the current economic downturn and the resultant inventory of unsold homes and undeveloped zombie subdivisions there certainly is an open question of how long before those homes are sold and those subdivisions are completed.

"Cul-de-Sac Syndrom" is an interesting companion to $20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives for the Better as our current society and culture are predicated on suburban existence and reliance on relatively inexpensive gasoline for our commutes. If the price of oil goes up the economic viability of suburbia starts to come into question and the prescience of Wasik's observations here become even more important. "Cul-de-Sac Syndrome" is akin to a 1000 or 2000 level university survey course on real estate development at a far cheaper cost. Viewing the carnage of the real estate market in places like California, Las Vegas, Florida, and Georgia points to the wisdom of his arguments and the need to rethink the how, why, and where of future building. This is a wake up call for building better communities and homes for our future.

Too many of us have never had the American dream; some have lost it. Wasik's book, in a brief, cogent, and clear manner, discusses many of the various causative and curative factors of this sad reality. Jane Jacobs' classic was certainly prescient. But Wasik's description of the cul-de-sac syndrome and its development and implications provides insight into some of what would otherwise be mysterious about the current infra-structure crises. A must read for concerned but busy folks.

Are you frothing at the mouth about the recent economic recession? If you are, then I'm sure you will enjoy this polemical piece of fluff. Wasik sets out to detail how the "The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome" is affecting our everyday life and how we can reverse the problem and create a new community...only problem is that the book is way too short on describing the problem and doesn't offer enough real solutions. In addition, Wasik's work uses fair toooooo many adjectives describing pollution as "evil" and people as "greedy". John just give me the information and allow me to draw a conclusion, okay. He spends the first half of his book detailing the problem of America run amok with greed and a desire to have a castle of their own economy and environment be damned. He lays much of the blame at the people's feet but secretly harbors a grudge against those "evil" capitalists that forced this policy down our throat, what with their greed and large amounts of money. In the second half of the book, he then tries to offer solutions to solving our community crisis. However, the first two examples he offers, a green home on a nature conservancy and a modular construction project, both cost over $1,000,000 with the land purchase. Where's your indignation now? Seriously, I completely agree with the premise of this book and believe that a lack of walking paths and business with suburban and exurb, Wasik creates the term "spurb" to describe these communities is a real problem. I just think that this book is a poorly executed and it appears disjointed book. It looks as if someone tried to marry the economic downturn onto a project that was already in the works and it left the book in a limbo. If you are looking to get some information about the problem suburbia might i recommend "The Geography of Nowhere" by Kuntsler or "Crabgrass Frontier" by Jackson. Yes, both are older books but are so much better than this book in detailing the problem. However, if you are wanting an uneven primer on the how the current economic crisis is affecting the housing market, I guess this is your book???

There is a great deal of information in this book as the author throws the McSink in with the McMansion. It covers the latest downturn, how American society ended up fascinated with home ownership to the point that many now believe it a right not a privilege, and how the home itself and the development it resides in can be better designed.

His 'cul-de-sac' metaphor covers personal entitlement, home and community design, and the dead-end many Americans now find themselves. This situation is "a cul-de-sac of unsustainable costs and serious long-term consequences for our health and our environment". So not only is this a book about economic consequences it covers urban planning, resource depletion, and homebuilding techniques. He coins the term, "spurbs", or the sprawling urban areas that make the homeowners car dependent and the whole situation 'unsustainable'. In terms of home design, Wasik's frustration clearly shows, homes "became statements of pure ego and the subjugation of nature" and "Each new home became a mini theme park" and "embody a need to convey wealth, status."

There were a few other subjects that stood out: the dotcom bubble cannot be viewed as a separate episode but rather as a part of the current crisis, the balloon frame form of construction which was new to me, and computer servers now consume 1.2% of all U.S. power (Google's servers eat up the equivalent power needed to run 11,000 homes).

Wasik is very passionate on all topics and there are logical connections between them but it felt disconnected to me perhaps worthy of three different books - he even addresses obesity midway through. The content cannot be discounted but it could be better organized.

In The Cul-De-Sac Syndrome - Turning Around The Unsustainable American Dream, John Wasik provides a surgical strike into the heart of the socio-economic and social-structural challenges currently facing the U.S.

He begins with a characterization of the false economics that got us into this mess, a scholarly historical overview of the origins of suburbia in the U.S. and how debt and finance played a fundamental a role in the current conundrum.

As Wasik states, "The age of froth is long over. It's a time for reckoning and renewal." (p.174). This book focuses on re-imagining, re-engineering and rebuilding our communities...and a sustainable way of life for America.

Wasik spears the illusions and assumptions that fueled the unsustainable rise in residential real estate prices. He moves on to characterize how we must "clean up and move on."

This is not one of those books that simply summarizes and criticizes a crisis in hindsight. It provides terribly important insights into the correction required to stabilize and grow this nation.

Listen to Wasik. After devouring this work, I'm convinced he is a thinker legitimately worth paying attention to.

One of my favorites for 2009.