This amazing comparison is from Jim Kunstler’s article, “Peak Suburbia“. It is a comparison of the installed base of retail space per head of population.

It shows suburban sprawl and retail overcapacity that is clearly way out of hand. Nearly ten times the retail square feet per head compared to even the UK, world-renowned as “a nation of shopkeepers” (admittedly so labelled in a very different context). Certainly the US is more “spacious” than the European countries and real estate overall is accordingly less pricey, but bricks and mortar are still expensive and energy-intensive.

As Jim says: “I get lots of letters from people in various corners of the nation who are hysterically disturbed by the continuing spectacle of suburban development. But instead of joining in their hand-wringing, I reply by stating my serene conviction that we are at the end of the cycle — and by that I mean the grand meta-cycle of the suburban project as a whole. It’s over. Whatever you see out there now is pretty much what we’re going to be stuck with. The remaining things under construction are the last twitchings of a dying organism.”

I have RTH and XLY puts. Probably should be shorting REITs, too.