Single-family home building in Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties, which form the San Francisco metropolitan statistical area (MSA), is slowing to a trickle.
New York City stops at the Hudson River, but its urbanized land pattern straddles the water and radiates across northern New Jersey, enveloping cities such as Newark and Paterson as well as once-small villages such as Paramus and Montclair.
During the mid-1990s, when job growth in Atlanta ran at a 100,000 annual clip, the supply of single-family lots in the 15-county region flowed like water.
Faced with the current hard insurance market and no real confidence that it will soften soon, many builders are following the Franklin Roosevelt policy - try something, anything.
