What is a Housing Start (and why should you care)?

So just what is a "housing start?" Well according to J.H. Kunstler, in his book The Geography of Nowhere, a housing start "...represent monoculture tract developments of cookie-cutter bunkers on half-acre lots in far-flung suburbs..."

I like this definition. In fact, I like this book because it is, for me, beginning to answer a number of questions about why things are not working they way they should in the United States. For example, while I love my house, from the outside it is almost impossible to tell it apart from its neighbours, despite the amount of work put into keeping it up. From mowing on regular intervals to some decorative stone work (not too much though or it will offend the Architecture Committee of our community) it really does not look any different than any of the twelve hundred odd houses in the community and the community looks a lot like every other community build in this area in the late 1990s. This is a problem, least of which becuase I find it increasingly difficult to give people directions to it.

I visited Hawaii for a conference in 2000. It was my third trip to the Aloha State. I like Hawaii. But when I returned from the conference and was asked how it was, I replied that I could have been in Cleveland for all I saw of Hawaii. In retrospect, this was a symptom of something I have only just begun to understand, in part through the lens of this book. The United States is becoming more and more homogenized. Gone are the quaint little stores and other things that make a community "unique." Here in Manassas, we have an "old town" neighbourhood, some of the buildings dating back to the Civil War, and yet, there is very little about this "old town" that recommends it. It has a nice wine shop and a couple of good restaurants that I would recommend, but beyond that it has three banks, a half a dozen antique stores, six odd "barber shops" catering to men or women and the rest of the town is real estate offices. The few merchants, rightly, bemoan the lack of foot traffic. After all, there is nothing to do if you arrive at a restaurant and you have to wait for a table, nor is the town particularly interesting to stroll through after you finish your meal because there is so little to look at. Yet the number of houses, malls and rester aunts within 3 miles of this district are always busy and the residents, generally well heeled.

Perhaps the United States really does not understand any more what it takes to be an interesting nation. Because right now it is certainly looking like a very veneered environment.