As legend has it, Mark Twain once gave this famous investment advice: "Buy land; they're not making it anymore."

During the housing boom, home builders heeded the author's famous witticism, snapping up hundreds of thousands of acres in and around U.S. cities. They went to the suburbs when land supply ran short, and then to the distant – and cheaper – tracts known to planners as the exurbs.

The housing bust, and the phenomenal collapse of the home-building industry that began in 2007, helped cool the sprawl frenzy.

But according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies' annual State of the Nation's Housing report, released Thursday, sprawl is poised to make a comeback.

According to Census data examined by JCHS, the household growth in the 2000s was mostly concentrated outside of cities – city cores only accounted for 21% of growth, compared with 38% in the suburbs and 41% in the exurbs. This was largely driven by prices, a trend that is likely to continue. The current pause in exurban housing development has more to do with cooling demand caused by the downturn than with a major change in lifestyle choices, the Harvard center says.