The American Dream, Welcome to suburbia!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15598511

Return to Levittown: America's first suburb reaches 60
Levittown's early history in the post-World War II boom (Video by the BBC's David Botti)
Almost 60 years ago, a planned community embodied the hopes and prosperity of America. Now, it represents a more realistic picture of the American experience. The BBC investigates Levittown, Pennsylvania, as part of a year-long series.

Well it was a good idea at the time!
In reality we now need a similar "dream" for urban living in the future.

This also applies to Ireland as well because of our "Celtic Tiger Dream" with all those one-offs and rural housing developments in the early noughties!

eth0

The cost of bringing services to 'one-off houses' is often overstated by those who disagree with them for aesthetic reasons, although trying to get them to be more self sufficient would be a good thing

Car dependency is another oft-cited disadvantage, but will be sorted once petrol gets too expensive to make commuting feasible. Not just a rural problem either, you have people living in towns commuting 50-100km a day for work

There is a certain group of people in Ireland (mostly urban) who seem to have taken particular distaste to 'one off' housing. I cant help but think there is underlying anti-rural sentiment and a desire to use potential environmental issues to justify tarring all rural dwellers with the same brush and encouraging or forcing them to move to the city