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Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past few months, you are aware that there is a sub-prime mortgage lending crisis unfolding disastrously in this country. A recent article from Atlantic Monthly reported that the areas most devastated by the sub-prime catastrophe are subdivisions, which Tom Schueneman described in a related article as “built on the edges of urban areas where once arable land is bulldozed to make way for over-sized, energy-intensive houses, with landscaping consisting grassy yards adorned with non-native species of trees and shrubs, the whole lot of it out of character with the natural surroundings and located so that most residents are forced to drive miles and miles to get to work, for too often there is no public transportation available.” Sing it, Tom. The problems we’re experiencing in the housing industry extend beyond just shoddy lending practices in the mortgage world.

Something is very wrong with the way many of us live in the US. How have McMansions come to embody the American Dream? Why are these cookie cutter, energy hording monster homes that force us into our cars and away from our families for hours a day so desirable that we are bankrupting ourselves just to possess one, if only for a fleeting moment? Can’t we as a nation dream of something better and aspire to something higher? Can’t we dream of homes that don’t just look good from the outside but that are also good for our health, our souls, and the environment?

Now is the time to rethink how we discuss and consider housing costs in this country. Builders and real estate agents talk only about the upfront costs, but, for those of us not paying cash upfront for our new house, it is really about the monthly costs of owning a home and those include our energy bills. When we start to evaluate homes on this basis, we see how much sense alternative energy sources like solar or wind power make. In the future, homes should come with labels, just like food does now. The labels should talk about the materials used to create the home, the health related aspects of it (listing harmful elements like off-gassing materials ought to be required), and the energy efficiency of the home. Such labels would allow home buyers to evaluate, based on their personal criteria, the actually value of a potential home.

We are a country of dreamers and that has always been a source of pride for us. So why should we buy into someone else’s prescribed vision of a dream home? Especially when it’s not thoughtfully designed and is actually harmful to both your personal finances and shared environment? We can and should demand more from the housing industry and we ought to begin right now. We must dream big, but live smart.