THE main trend in new housing for the past 15 years has been toward biggerand better-equippedhomes and apartments. Now the nation's housing crisis has thrown that movement into reverse. Builders are turning again to the construction of small, stripped-down dwellings. The result is a reappearance of what social critics call suburban "ticky-tacky." Much of it is almost as cramped, though perhaps not quite as ugly as the postwar bungalows that earned developers considerable derision in the 1950s.
Builders have rushed back to the low-priced end of the market because the soaring costs of...