Despite their currently low numbers, green homes typically re-sell for more money than their conventional counterparts. Until there's a way to measure it I cer

Despite their currently low numbers, green homes typically re-sell for more money than their conventional counterparts. Until there's a way to measure it I certainly wouldn't get my hopes up. To illustrate the issue, go to http://www.zillow.com/ http://www.zillow.com/ and try to select a house for sale that you believe would be efficient or otherwise more suitable for the "new future" -- it's basically impossible. It's not Zillow's fault either, generally MLS services have such awful data that it's hard to trust anything beyond the number of bedrooms. Until there's a way to look up your rating and look down at your neighbor's, I wouldn't expect the people who currently inhabit suburbs to make it a priority. Furthermore, except for a few localized situations I believe that the suburbs are safe for the forseeable future. There has long been the assumption that fuel costs are inelastic, but 2008 has shown that to be untrue. America is, for all intents and purposes, treating oil as if it's free -- the suburbs drive to work one person per vehicle in passenger cars in the midst of a horsepower war (Cadillac has a 550hp product in the "compact sedan" segment and BMW's smallest cars, the "1-series", are available with a 300+hp engine!), or trucks that make the commercial trucks of the 70s (not to mention the 40s!) look downright weak. The 2009 F-150 (at one time called a "half-ton" pickup) has a 1.5 ton payload capacity and can tow almost six tons. This vehicle is routinely ignored by construction contractors and macho wanna-be alpha-males who go straight to the "Super-Duty" models, capable of hauling three tons and towing ten tons! For all of the wankery we've heard recently about the end of life as we know it, we've yet to begin to even try. There's a lot of easy belt-tightening to do before people have to give up on their version of the American Dream. On the flip side, all of the attention toward green living should hopefully generally raise awareness and stimulate development of greener products, definitely a win for everyone. We've needed a shock like 2008 for about 20 years now.