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Article snippet: SYDNEY, Australia — Let me tell you a fairy tale called longest period of economic expansion of any developed country in modern history. Our cities are regularly judged to be among the most livable in the world. But we are in danger of stuffing it up, which is an Australian way of saying we may be ruining it all. In the past 20 years, Australia has become a nation where getting ahead is a national obsession, partly because we have come to expect a world where the natural course of events is to become a little bit richer each year. The winnings of our repeated economic booms have been squandered on inflationary policies that fuel the rat race. What we are discovering is that when you have a nation full of people trying to get to the top, eventually most of the population is forced to run just to keep up. Our enviable quality of life is at risk. Consider what has happened with the housing market, Australia being a country where real estate is not just a place to live but a ticket to prosperity and a statement of taste and values. Generous tax breaks for homeowners and real estate investors have fueled the market to the point where the median price of a house in Sydney, our largest metropolis, is $1.1 million Australian dollars, or about $824,000. An entire genre of newspaper writing is dedicated to telling Australians what they could buy for the same money in other parts of the world — a small chateau in the South of France, even an apartment in Manhattan, for the ... Link to the full article to read more