And that's just looking at it from an individual rationality point of view. If you expand this lifestyle into it's externalities it's clearly a huge loss for e

And that's just looking at it from an individual rationality point of view. If you expand this lifestyle into it's externalities it's clearly a huge loss for everyone involved; with those participating in it only funding a tiny fraction of it's costs. Not only are these types of lifestyles by far the most subsidized in the US (not even a tiny fraction of suburbs are sustainable financially long-term), this lifestyle is actively destroying the social cohesion of the country. I think the lense of history will show the suburban development model to be laughably obviously not sustainable in a financial/energy sense of the word; but I think in the end those will be footnotes. The true destruction and externality is the divisiveness and social dysfunction. You cannot have the vast majority of your "best" middle class population sequester themselves into little boxes (house, car, cube, big box store and back again) with exceedingly little forced social interaction and not expect the outcomes we are seeing. Basically it's the balkanization of America, and done for almost the sole reason of propping up single family home values.