By Becky Sullivan and Ari Shapiro | NPR
Ten years ago, a slow-moving disaster shook the entire country: a financial meltdown that did not leave a single state untouched.
The main catalyst was a housing bubble.
Throughout the early 2000s, housing prices in some parts of the country rose, and rose, and rose. Homes with prices that for decades had steadily grown with inflation were suddenly worth 50 percent or 100 percent more.