There was, of course, a financial reason beyond Mona's housing choice. She knew that cities are the only place where price will hold up, or only fall slightly, no matter what it will happen with the other areas when the bubble will disintegrate into thin air, as bubbles do.
It will take time for the home prices to settle for a real value in the outer areas, she told me once. It seems that they did not realize you can not build too many homes, way over a realistic demand and then create the demand by inventing the “new buyer” and expect that it will hold up. Yes, she noticed, is part of our cultures, and thus is part of us, to desire a house that is ours.

Our ancestors lived in worse times,times of wars and hunger and unending hours of labor.But, even in the worst of wars, they always had this – a home of their own,a point of return. It was, in most cases, just a shack – adobe and strow or a burdei- a dugout,a hole in the ground with a roof of earth covered with moss. They called it 'mine", no matter how poor, a safe hearth where they could raise the children they called their own. This desire of possessing a home is within us, and it is so much more important here, where the nation is still young and the people have a much storneger need of belonging. So, they started to build in the middle of nowhere…And they made people think they can afford these houses and the land, that they could travel an hour to work by car -like oil is going to be here forever, it always was; and oil prices are going to come down again, not to worry about it.

It is the city, where there is not much more room to build, where people have to live in –because there is where there jobs and schools are , it is the city that is going to hold up its value. Of course even cities here are different than the ones we left behind in the old land; they are still open to new buildings, but the opportunity to build new places is limited.

She points it out in the Wall Street Journal, keeping the paper on her knees and putting a finger slightly on the article: “Where Home Prices are Holding Up” . Downtown, of course, says the author Mr. Opdyke.

I do agree with her, I do believe in the best investment opportunities lay in the Brownfields, the run down city areas. It seems only logical to me, with the raising oil prices and all these concern about ecology that most people will like to live closer to their jobs and their children schools and ballet classes, where they can lock their cars in the garage for days and do not miss them. People will learn to appreciate the commodity of walking and cheaper transportation: their need to belong is more ancestral then their suburban upbringing.