Haven't read the other LoCs yet, but I just wanted to say that everything the LW said about modern suburbia is true. If you want more information, read Sprawl Kills: How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health, and Money by Joel Hirschhorn.

Cary's suggestions are good. Also, look up "sustainable communities", and placemakers.com.

Years ago, I bought a house just before a "correction" in the market. Got divorced, wanted to get rid of the house, and discovered that the house's value had gone down and I couldn't sell. So I held on, though it felt like a stretch to afford (and I had to make an agreement with my ex that he'd get his share out of it too).

Because I lived in a place where people generally want to live, a relatively nice neighborhood, the housing values eventually recovered. So 5 years later I sold at a profit.

In the meantime, I did what I could to make the house more pleasant to me and to the future buyers. Because I waited out the bad market, I was able to get my money back, plus enough profit to buy a good place in an urban neighborhood I liked.

So LW has my sympathy. IF your neighborhood is a desirable one, you'll probably get your money out of the house, but maybe not this year. While you weather this little storm, go out and learn about neighborhoods, check out open houses. Decide which neighborhood you really want to live in, and get to know it well. If you're planning a family, schools will be critical so learn about them as well. When it's time to jump, you'll be ready.

View this as an assignment in an alien land. Make your space as pleasant as you can while planning your escape.

Suburban living is going out of style in the same way that urban living went out of style 30 years ago. So your McMansions is going to lose value while the kind of place you'd like to live in gains value.

Take your lumps and get out now, it's only going to get worse. There was a good article in the Atlantic Monthly about this, check it out.

I have read, over and over today, that "it will only get worse" that "your feelings won't change."

Well, guess what? That is NOT a given. Unless you have some organic disease that causes depression or anxiety, YOU are in charge of your response to your environment, not the other way around. Is it easy, when you are used to blaming the environment and other people for your feelings, to think that leaving that environment, leaving the people, will make everything better.

But YOU will still be with you, and unless you teach yourself to find the real cause of your unhappiness, it will happen all over again. I have no idea whether the LW is going to be happy in the long run in a career in hedge funds. But he can control his day to day responses to working in that industry. He lives in a beautiful house, that he is afraid he will lose and isn't sure that he likes. If you can make a 20x20 apartment feel like home, surely you can make a house feel like home. What is missing? What in your home feels uncomfortable? Find it and change it.

I highly recommend counting blessings, because you have them. As does every person who believes that they are in/were in/has friends who are in impossibly horrid situations. Find the blessings and go with them.

about the two phd's but no discernment. Totally set aside the suburbs, new and old urbanisms, etc., arguments: how in the hell did you end up a captive of magazine common sense and the "everyone's getting the big mortgage" stimulation, trapped now in a place?

This is stupid, and stupid is not one reckless decision, but a way of not seeing things. For people in such materially advantageous circumstances, you come off as a spectator in your own life.

Solve that. Maybe move.

Dear LW,

I say this without acrimony but as a straightup fact, I would indeed love to have your problem. I am kind of poor and cannot afford a house, in suburbia or anywhere.

I'm a little bitter, but I refuse to feel anger toward you. I know myself well enough to know that if I were in your situation, I would likely have some similar feelings.

I feel guilt enough as it is at having a decent apartment, a car that runs, and health care. I know there are others with so much less.

Signing off with love,

Another Human Being, Known on Salon as

LW, your instincts are self-preserving. Here's a good book to check out for inspiration: Little House on a Small Planet, by Shay Solomon. You sound like you probably wouldn't want to replicate what these people are doing, but it shows one what is possible and articulates exactly what is wrong with big houses- psychologically, environmentally, etc. It has inspired me think about how to shrink my and my husband's 1,600 square foot house down to about 1,000. Another good resource, with more high-end examples, is the Not-so Big House series by Susan Susanka: www.notsobighouse.com. Good luck!

I don't know what your solution is, but I do believe that some physical infrastructures (houses, neighborhoods, streets) are so ugly and soul killing that they can make you physically ill, and depressed. You seem to have found one such place. Too bad you found it just as housing prices are collapsing. But lucky you found it while young, newly married and able to adjust.

No amount of drugs, therapy and bowling league memberships can overcome the sickness of a car based suburban life.... particularly if you feel its pain so sharply and so immediately.

Your spouse probably needs to hear your pain and find away to adjust to your needs. She may have needs for security, social position, or space, that need to be met, but can probably be met by other houses in other neighborhoods.

Suburbs are sick... you are lucky to have realized it now. Listen to that feeling.

Learn about permaculture and how philosophy, building, community and healing can all come together from this interview with Mark Lakeman of City Repair in Portland Oregon (27 minutes).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYgQAfxXHqk&eurl=http://www.documentedlife.com/log/?p=350

Also from the same SE Portland scene (8 minutes).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVq0exoGySc&feature=related