MEDIA - The other housing crunch - Shelter magazines fold in a market crowded with titles and as readers get information from other sources.

After a century in print, House & Garden delivered its final edition this month. Also bowing out: InStyle Home, Robb Report Luxury Home and, after just one issue, Robb Report Vertical Living.

Reader loyalty isn't the cause. House & Garden had a circulation of almost 1 million when it folded. The blame, experts say, lies in the extent to which the home-fashion-lifestyle category has become overcrowded with titles, and design information has spread to newspapers, TV, radio and websites. Too many players are competing for too few advertising dollars -- a problem that is expected only to worsen if the housing slump and tightened credit markets result in fewer homes bought, remodeled or redecorated.

A spokesperson for Blueprint declined to elaborate on the magazine's demise, but it's clear: In terms of editorial content, the competition is just as fierce.

"Design is everywhere now. Time magazine has design as its cover subject. Frank Gehry shows up as a character on 'The Simpsons,' " says Mayer Rus, a former editor and "The Testy Tastemaker" columnist for House & Garden. "I found myself fighting for design stories with chic fashion magazines and even scandal sheets talking about an 18-year-old Hollywood tart living in grand style."

An emphasis on expensive furnishings and high-end interior design seemed logical a few years ago, says Adele Cygelman, former editor in chief of several Robb Report spinoff titles including Luxury Home, which called it quits with the November/December issue.

"The housing frenzy allowed people to trade up," Cygelman says. "And readers didn't look at magazines to see how the other half lived anymore but how they could live. They traded up from a $2,000 couch to a $10,000 one, and instead of shopping at Crate & Barrel, they went to the Pacific Design Center. All of this upward thinking is slowing down now with the economy."

The financial pressures mounting on magazines' business operations very well may inspire changes in editorial content, industry observers say. Readers today want information that benefits them now, not some day, says Samir Husni, chairman of the University of Mississippi's journalism department and longtime author of an annual guide to new magazines.