The housing bubble part of this as yet another way that the economy is failing... well for everyone that isn't wealthy is probably a far larger and more nuanced

The housing bubble part of this as yet another way that the economy is failing... well for everyone that isn't wealthy is probably a far larger and more nuanced part of the problem than the article realizes. It was at least true when I was a kid that the 'American Dream' included owning your own home and trying to build up wealth that way. However, as an American 'teen' I found getting a job in the suburbs pretty much impossible: I didn't have a car and I had no reliable / safe way to get outside of the small local malls which already had hundreds of other students competing for work. It might have also been that most of the less complex, safe to hand off to any random teen/adult, jobs had already been outsourced or made obsolete. - Today housing prices in the middle of nowhere, where there aren't jobs, are somewhat reasonable... Trying to get a place that is your own near jobs? There seem to be far too few places relative to the number of jobs; thus competition fails to reward places that are planned and built well and favors sellers that use every loophole and cut every corner they're not legally required to fulfill.