I have to say, Newsweek -- if you haven’t already noticed is my favorite magazine! -- does a great job covering class issues and lifestyle stories. Most recently, I have enjoyed a series of stories on McMansions, or spanking brand-new sprawling homes, which are all the rage here in America. (Er, used to be all the rage.)

Newsweek columnist Robert J. Samuelson claims that homes such as the 5,700 square-foot one he writes about are tied to the foreclosures and housing market bust we are witnessing today.

Everyone knows the direct causes of the present housing collapse: low interest rates, lax mortgage lending, rampant speculation. But the larger force lies in Americans' devotion to homeownership. It explains why government officials, politicians and journalists (including this one) overlooked abuses in "subprime" lending. The homeownership rate was approaching 70 percent in 2005, up from 64 percent in 1990. Great. A good cause shielded bad practices. The same complacency lulled ordinary Americans into paying ever-rising home prices. Something so embedded in the national psyche must be OK.

"House lust" is what Dan McGinn calls it in his book by the same title. McGinn documents—sympathetically, for he dotes on his own home—our housing excesses, starting with supersizing. In Sweden, Britain and Italy, new homes average under 1,000 square feet. By 2005, the average newly built U.S. home measured 2,434 square feet, and there were many that were double, triple or quadruple that. After World War II, the first mass Levittown suburbs offered 750-square-foot homes. (Full disclosure: McGinn is a NEWSWEEK colleague.)

Well, I am sure market conditions, such as a loss of a job or income, also feed into this unfortunate trend.

But even in the Bay Area, which is still a popular destination, I am seeing a lot of foreclosures in our neighborhood. I am shocked that the banks still want at least $600,000 -- and these aren’t even new or big homes! -- but they are not selling.

But something that caught my eye in an excerpt of McGinn’s book, which Samuelson mentions, is Americans’ obsession with their homes. According to Home Lust, Americans will spend more than $170 billion remodeling homes. (You have got to see the photos online. We are talking about indoor swimming pools, marble floors, huge kitchens, etc..)

In fact, savings and pension plans are down, while an increasing number of Americans rely on home equity as their savings. Fifty-five percent of Americans still think their homes are gaining value -- “a level of optimism that borders on delusional,” McGinn writes -- according to Boston Consulting Group.

I don’t get it. While I like looking at high-end homes and watching HGTV like the next person, where are people getting the money for these projects? Also, I am with Samuelson, what is up with Americans and their homes?

I have no desire to clean a 5,000-foot house or purchase a second car to get to it every day. While I feel fortunate to live in the city near restaurants, public transit and a supermarket -- this is what we did pay for --  I still view my house as just a roof over my head.