I dunno. The Washington Post is pushing the line that we'll start skimping on our homes now that the market has crashed. Out will be grand entranceways, huge lots and McMansion gingerbread. In will be energy efficiency, tight lots and multi-family dwellings.

The story posits a parallel between the Victorian era, when people erected 30-room mansions, and those homes' subsequent decline into the multi-family/rental market.

Like I said: I dunno.

For the next couple years, the middle class, provided they have jobs, can grab 2,800- to 3,500-square-foot houses for relative pennies in the Tampa suburbs. They're not mansions, but five bedrooms and 3 baths isn't a hole in the ground covered by a couple twigs.

As we've reported in the past, the region has no shortgage of vacant building lots. At last count the four-county Tampa metro area had something on order of 32,000 developed home sites sitting idle.

The Post's story may ring truer in the Washington suburbs, but I don't see a major land shortgage in the Sun Belt, if you exclude much of California.

The Gilded Age ain't over.