Urban planners and anti-sprawl advocates point to Germany as a wonderland of appropriate land use. It is true that Germany has been better at preserving open space between former villages; the non-stop development that seems continuous throughout most of the United States cannot be found here. However, this triumph of planning has also come at a cost, in terms of affordability, and has kept a large percentage of the population from being able to own their own home. Germany is expensive because of forced scarcity of land and an extremely unproductive building industry, with certain peculiarities of German culture creating additional costs. The reasons for the lack of productivity in the German housing industry stretch back to land holding patterns in the Middle Ages, when the southern and western provinces of Germany were divided into countless small duchies and bishoprics. These small holdings stayed in the families for generations and prevented the consolidation of plots. The large pl