Poor Planning

Joel Kotkin writes for New Geography about the massive disconnect between urban planners and the housing desires of middle class Americans. He begins with the same disconnect happening in China, overbuilding of expensive, high-density housing that isn't what Chinese people want or can afford. Meanwhile in the U.S.:

Particularly during the Obama years, state planning agencies, notably in California, and the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) have embraced a largely anti-suburban, pro-density agenda. In 2010, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, pointing to foreclosures in suburban Phoenix, claimed that the die was already cast: "we’ve reached the limits of suburban development."

Yet roughly 80 percent of Americans prefer the sort of single family housing found primarily in suburbia, according to a 2011 study conducted by the National Association of Realtors and Smart Growth America. Among home-owning households, apartment style dwellings (multi-family, including high rise condominiums) are the fourth most popular type of housing (5.3 percent), following detached (82 percent), mobile homes (6.4 percent), and attached or townhomes (5.7 percent).

Auto-loving Americans don't want to become European-style urbanites, which really frosts mass transit-loving planners.