Every founder who has ever pitched an idea has heard the same romantic version of the American Dream: start with nothing, build something the world has never seen, and let the risk be the price of the reward. A quieter, less mythologized version of that same dream is sitting on the balance sheets of millions…
A house, two cars, a couple of kids, a retirement account that actually grows, and enough left over for a vacation once a year. That is roughly what "the American Dream" has meant for most of the past century. This year, this magazine decided to actually price it out, region by region, category by category,…
