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

John F. Wasik (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1576603202 | ISBN-13: 978-1576603208 | Edition: 1

An incisive look at the consequences of today's costly and damaging suburban lifestyle, this new book exposes the economic, cultural, environmental, and health problems underlying life in suburbia. John Wasik provides powerful insights into how the U.S. suburban lifestyle became unsustainable and what can be done to salvage it. Wasik's observations are firmly grounded in exclusive on-the-ground research, interviews with thought leaders, and the latest studies and statistics. He exposes the untold truths about home ownership: green isn't always so green, life isn't cheaper after accounting for gas, water, and taxes, and modern suburban living isn't so idyllic considering the toll it takes on our health. Wasik's trenchant analysis adds a new dimension to an important topic, with exclusive research and analysis that debunks the many myths of suburban living, while exploring innovative solutions being developed in cities and suburbs across the country.

"Get ready for a totally original look at the American dream. Wasik delivers the first truly multidisciplinary examination--using planning, law, architecture, and history to focus on working solutions that can keep the dream alive. This is a winner!" - Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch columnist and author

"This excellent book takes a ground-level look at the causes of our housing crisis and offers a myriad of ideas on reinventing the concepts of home and community." - Ilyce R. Glink, syndicated real estate columnist and author

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Veteran author John Wasik had me hooked with his brilliant writing from the very first page. Wasik weaves macro-economics, history, green technology, the environment, the American dream of home ownership and the ensuing bubble that snared so many intelligent people, into a seamless narrative so thoroughly compelling that it was a page turning joy to read. . . . Cul-de-Sac is an absolute must read for anyone who wants to know how the housing boom went awry, get a sneak peek at solutions for the future, and especially anyone considering buying their first home, or their tenth. It's one of those rare books that is so enjoyable to read that you won't be aware its teaching you more about history, science, economics, and real estate than you would ever learn in a semester long college course." --Daily Kos, June 14, 2009 --Daily Kos, June 14, 2009

"The Cul-de-sac Syndrome is an interdisciplinary study of the true cost of today's American dream. It's an unflinching look at the recent period when homeownership actually made many people poorer as they tapped their home equity, went into debt to finance their lifestyle and contributed little to retirement investing because of the misguided assumption that home appreciation would fund their future years.
This award-winning writer is one of my favorites because of the way he approaches complex topics from a range of directions. Economics, history, civics, architecture, ecology, public health each takes its turn in this investigation of sustainability. Wasik also dares to ask brutally critical questions. Is the overpowering lust for homeownership blinding Americans to becoming better world environmental citizens and improving our health? he wonders.

Wasik's meticulous research centers on the so-called spurb, his invented term for car-dependent sprawling urban areas, unconnected to core cities by public transportation and beset by unsustainable costs for infrastructure, services and resources. Think developments built far on the desert outskirts of cities such as Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The American dream of moving further from a city to buy a bigger house and find better schools has become a costly proposition, he observes. The pursuit of happiness isn't all it's cracked up to be when you have a killer commute." --Better Investing, August 2009

"offers an incisive look at the true consequences of this particular version of the American dream. The author is a consummate reporter and skillful writer with a keen sense of what is essential to a narrative and what is not." --Foreword Magazine, July 2009

From the Back Cover

"John Wasik's The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome offers enough to chew on for three sets of teeth, enough to digest for three stomachs, and then alerts the mind faster than an approaching siren."
—RALPH NADER, consumer advocate

"Get ready for a totally original look at the American dream. Wasik delivers the first truly multidisciplinary examination—using planning, law, architecture, and history to focus on working solutions that keep the dream alive. This is a winner!"
—PAUL B. FARRELL, JD, PhD, columnist, MarketWatch.com, and author of The Millionaire Code

"This excellent book takes a ground-level look at the causes of our housing crisis and offers myriad ideas on reinventing the concepts of home and community."
—ILYCE R. GLINK, syndicated real estate columnist and author of 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask

"A genuine kick to the head, showing how our individual quests for the biggest house on the hill are destroying our environment, the economy, and our health. But The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome is no dead end. It offers a green, urbanized 'promised land' with real community, more free time, and a higher living standard. It's a masterful blueprint to unpave paradise and restore the world we cherish."
— AURENCE KOTLIKOFF, author of Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World's Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 207 pages
• Publisher: Bloomberg Press; 1 edition (June 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576603202
• ISBN-13: 978-1576603208
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.7 x 9.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,094,105 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am curious about the world. That's why I'm compelled to ask questions about history, politics, the environment, economics and investing. Although I don't write in order to live, I put words down in order to understand life. My two most recent books are "The Cul-de-Sac Syndrome" and "The Audacity of Help." The former book explores the past, present and future of American housing from the colonial era to today. It was an outgrowth of research I was doing into environmental building, which I see as one antidote to climate change, resource depletion and affordable housing. It was also a tangential follow-up to my "Merchant of Power," which was the history of electrical generation as seen through the lens of the life of utilities magnate Samuel Insull. My "Audacity of Help" is an in-depth look at the economic crisis and how President Obama's economic plan will address some deep-seated economic and social problems. I don't write in a vacuum, however. I speak all over the country on the topics I write about, write blogs, a column for Bloomberg News and try to engage intelligent people on the best ways to understand, confront and heal many of the country's economic and social ills. If I do this right, you'll have some pretty decent questions to ask those in power after reading my books. Democracy is knowledge in action and I'm an ecodynamic player.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars a look at the American dream - past, present, and future June 10, 2009

By Joan Larsen

Format:Hardcover

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!

19 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Deja Vu June 17, 2009

By C. Schaefer

Format:Hardcover

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.

17 of 22 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Crisis: US or International, Housing or Leverage June 21, 2009

By Marc C. Chandler

Format:Hardcover

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.