It takes an article like this to reintroduce us to situations that, to a greater or lesser degree, have been going on around us for ages. Would there have been the same hue and cry if the article was on excavating one's back yard for a large in ground pool, complete with the appropriate amount of decking, security fencing, maybe a cabana,and a few brightly planted containers scattered around? Likewise, don't we somehow find it odd that many of the world's most beautiful resorts eschew the natural beauty of their surroundings and spend multimillions creating fake pools, lagoons, waterfalls, scenery etc? Closer to home, aren't we all pretty blase about developers clear cutting wooded acreage to build suburban tract housing so owners can flock to the nearest garden center to make an attempt at replacing what was taken away - all the while hoping that the displaced natural habitats of the birds and butterflies and other woodland creatures can somehow be made right again by scatterings of posies? I love gardening and cannot imagine not wanting to garden or being unable to do it. That being said, I can't regard someone who does not share my passion as an unworthy steward of the earth. I can't dismiss out of hand as being eco-unfriendly anyone who wishes to spend his tree, shrub, and flower budget on hardscaping to create an environment in which he is no longer a slave to its maintenance. I lived in Maryland for 30 some years; with the heat and humidity and long growing season, I remember the grass already looking raggedy within three days of having been cut, flowers bloomed out and crispy by the 4th. of July, and the list goes on. Sure, there are the ubiquitous azaleas, rhododendron, camellias, boxwood, dogwood, hollies, Japanese Maples, flowering crabs, plums, cherries - many periodic care/no care plants to choose from. And maybe the subject of the article will choose something beautiful to soften the hardscape and will also have carefully considered any water runoff issues. As eduarda reminded us, it's the availabilty of water that will become a real determinant of what we might be able to do even in our private spaces. This is the second season of severe drought here (global warming? a protracted stretch of "weather"?) and I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that eventually my plant choices are going to have to be more in tune with survival with little or no supplemental water. I'm not getting younger and my two old city parcel realm isn't getting any smaller. Now when I walk through my gardens, or look at the expanses of lawn going dormant earler and earlier in the season, more often than not I think there has to be a way of downsizing without going to extremes. Perhaps mine is a minority view, but there are worse things one could do to a quarter acre backyard than install some nice stonework. Even in the Metro DC area, 90k should get you a pretty good looking space.

It seems obvious to me that most of the older homes still standing today are the ones that were well-built to begin with (and then well-maintained.) Those that were built with shoddy workmanship in the first place have fallen down. So its not like we're comparing apples to apples when we compare the average new home to older houses that have stood the test of time. The "average" house of 150 years ago has probably crumpled into dust by now! I suspect that a truly well-built house today will stand the test of time just as well or better than the well-built houses from 100 to 200 years ago. We simply no longer have the "old growth timber" available to build homes the same way they were built in the past. We also no longer have people with the know-how to create some of the fine hand-made finish work that was common in the past. Those few who retain those skills can command such prices that most of us simply can't afford them. However, we do have a plethora of wonderful products that were not available to builders of the past. House-wrap, open-web trusses, i-beam trusses, high efficiency windows, fiberglass doors, 30 year shingles, insulation, better paints, fibercement sidings, etc. Where these new products are used as they are designed and intended to be used, a house built today should last as long or longer than one built 150 years ago. The problem is, too many builders don't really know how to use these new products and don't care enough to learn. (You have to wonder how any builder still NOT know how to use Tyvek or how to properly flash a window. I mean, it is not rocket science. It takes about 10 minutes to figure out. But go around and look at a random sampling of houses in progress and I'll lay odds that nearly half will either have the housewrap incorrectly installed or windows improperly flashed or both!) If the homes built by these lazy good-for-nothing builders last 25 years, the homeowner will be darned lucky.

My copy arrived today. Congratulations, Bart. It is a great article and it's nice to finally see you. What a great place to work too. DS lives in the building where the LaSalle Bank Theater is located (don't know if I'll ever call it the Bank of America theatre), which doesn't hold a candle to the Auditorium.

Stands to reason--let's face it---right now---(and likely for the next couple of years)----a house investment is a loser (declining value). BUT---these things run in cycles----around 2010 things will start looking up. Of course, this assumes the Feds retain the favorable tax treatment of mortgage interest (continue it's deductability) IF the next administration goes for a flat tax---nat'l sales tax--or whatever--that eliminates all deductions--then ALL bets are OFF. Personally--I'm taking advantage of the situation and planning to pour $100K plus into my joint (mainly kitchen)---there's some hungry GC's out there---I can tell by the looks on my bidder's faces.