It is easy to look around and think that things have always been the way things are now. It is easy to overlook the fact that hollow, empty, crime and poverty stricken cities of the 70s were not the way things were in the 50. Or that many cites are much better off now than they were in the 70s.

The middle class dream of a single-family home on a half acre of land and miles and miles of suburbs was a new thing in the late 40s. In the 20s there were cities and rural farming areas with very little in between.

Nothing stays the same.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/subprime