Derek Thompson points out some interesting household expenditure data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: Americans spend quite a bit on housing and transportation.

Families with radically different incomes—from lawyers and doctors down to high-school dropouts—all spend about half of it on homes and getting around, which suggests an historically tight relationship between marginal income growth and marginal spending growth on real estate and transportation. You get a raise, you shack up with roommates. You get another raise, you get nicer studio. A bigger raise and you move out to the suburbs and buy a house—commensurably increasing your spending on transportation (bigger car + gas).

This monopoly of housing/transit dominance is sticky for many reasons—America is big and has space for houses but zoning often limits development, leaving us with high relative housing prices and rents; suburban sprawl invites car ownership; infrastructure supports a car culture; our gas taxes are low and mortgage interest deductions are high; the list goes on—but it doesn’t have to be this way. Not every country spends half its income on homes and cars. They have other priorities, like the UK, where the typical family spends a walloping 20 percent of its income on the super-category of “fun stuff”: culture, entertainment, sports, alcohol, and tobacco. Or look at Japan, which spends more than twice as much as us on food consumed at home.

And where might this money go if it was not spent on these two areas?

Imagine what would happen if we didn’t spend $1 in $2 on houses and cars. It would be rocky for the real estate and auto industries who have come to rely on a steady stream of spending. But it would leave a lot of money left over other stuff—like smartphones, and dinners out with friends, and shoes whose fanciness belies our income level. This isn’t a vision of the future. It’s a description of the way a lot of young people live today, particularly educated twentysomethings who’ve moved to urban light areas (e.g.: newer subrubs within commuting distance of the city proper, like Arlington, Va.) where they can save on real estate, take public transit, and preserve enough of their lowish salaries to cobble together a connected and fairly social life outside work, if they have it. Maybe these trends are recession-era fads that will fade with the recovery. If not, it’ll be a big deal.

Owning a car and a home simply seem to be foundational features of modern America and the American Dream. The first offers independence and mobility. The second offers a private retreat from the harsh outside world and one’s own land to do as they please (though owners might choose to be part of homeowner’s associations that limit their options to enhance their property values). Being middle-class, a desired goal of many Americans, is tied to these two items. They also point to a person’s identity, representing one’s status and personal tastes.

All that said, Thompson hints at the possibilities if these foundational values (dating to roughly the 1910s and 1920s and then cemented in the prosperous post-World War II era when they became more attainable) fade and are replaced by others. It isn’t just an economic question of what happens to the auto industry or builders but rather a larger question about American social life: could be truly imagine an America without widespread praise and chasing after houses and cars?