THIRTY miles from downtown Minneapolis is the small city of Otsego, defined by its proximity to two highways and its investment in two wastewater treatment plants. Its one grocery store is a SuperTarget. Its walkability score, on a scale of 1 to 100, is 3.

And yet, as soon as the housing market showed signs of resuscitation, building began again, workers started assembling swatches of sod into lawns and suburban pioneers were, once again, happy to colonize a cul-de-sac, confident that others would follow.

It was as if one of the most despised bad actors of the boom years — urban sprawl — had been hiding out in earnest Otsego, with its low crime rate and free Tuesday kiddie concerts. It was easy for a visitor, standing there amid the bulldozers, to imagine that sprawl had put a finger to the wind and decided it was high time for a comeback.

But the details of this miniboom tell a more complicated story.

All of the land under development in Otsego was already slated for housing when the bust arrived, and the developers buying these surplus lots today are getting a better bargain because some of the work of planning and grading had already been completed. The cost difference has sweetened the deal for buyers who are willing to take on a longer commute for more house. But when it comes to breaking ground on new projects, developers are still focused on land closer to the city.