
American Houses Are Still Much, Much Bigger Than They Used To Be - pg
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/23/159835012/american-houses-are-still-much-much-bigger-than-they-used-to-be
======
breckinloggins
I've gone from small places to large places and back, and I can see the appeal
of both. One thing that's nice about a bigger house is that you can have
special purpose rooms. If you have only a living room but would love to have a
pool table, you're either out of luck or need to convince whoever you're
living with (sometimes yourself!) that it's ok to stick a pool table in the
middle of the living room. Or you have to compromise and get one of those
"pool table slash foosball table slash pingpong table" things that are pretty
much worthless.

Another example is home theatre. It's true that you can just put a big tv and
surround sound in your living room, but that more often than not screws up the
decor and larger purpose of the living room as a family gathering spot. When
you have a dedicated room, you can go nuts with the stadium seating and all of
that.

That said, I've downsized in the past two years from a two story four bedroom
house with a yard to a one bedroom apartment. I'm now preparing to spend the
next several months in an RV. I'm actually much, _much_ happier with this
arrangement.

For some, space is a true necessity (large families that wish to keep their
sanity). For others, space is a luxury that they can afford and that truly
makes them happy. For people like myself, though, I've found that I only
wanted what I _thought_ space could get me... "breathing room". Turns out I
needed psychological and intellectual breathing room more than I need more
physical space. Perhaps that will change as I get older, but right now I'm
glad I learned that I can be _happier_ in far less space. The freedom,
flexibility, and lower financial burdens this affords are well worth the cost
of having to move a table every now and then.

~~~
pkteison
People have had large families without much space for centuries. It clearly
isn't a necessity.

~~~
briandear
> It clearly isn't a necessity

Right. That's what freedom means. The freedom to buy whatever house you want.
I don't want people deciding what my "necessities" are. That's the problem,
too many people think they know what's best for everyone else. The Soviets
apparently knew what was "best" for their people and their crappy products,
terrible farming yields and dismal failing economic system was the result, not
to mention widespread poverty (as well as famine in 1930-1932.)

A house in general isn't a necessity. A lean-to in the woods could work. So
could a tent. People can tell me what they heck I'm allowed to buy, do or how
I should live as soon as they give me the right to start evaluating everything
they're doing.

If people want to build bigger homes, that's their right -- they are paying
for them. Just like if I want to drive 100,000 miles per year in a Hummer --
that's my right. Bigger houses are valued higher so the residents pay more
taxes which pays for more "stuff" that I often feel is clearly not a
"necessity." If I drive 100,000 miles per year, I'm paying gasoline taxes (and
tolls) which ostensibly fund roads and bridges as well as other
infrastructure.

I personally prefer a higher quality house and am willing to pay more per
square foot to get it. If that means I have a smaller house, that's fine with
me, but if people value size over quality, that's their right as well. In a
free market, no one is forced to buy anything (except for health insurance, of
course,) but those large suburban homes.. if that's what people want, who
cares? I don't tell people what women or men they should make babies with, so
why should people be able to tell us what homes to buy? Although I would argue
that bad human breeding choices causes more societal damage than a house with
500 extra square feet, but once again, it's about freedom.

Many people have forgotten what freedom means. It embarrassing to call myself
an American when a good portion of Americans feel like it's their duty to tell
everyone else how they should live their life to fit with some normative idea
held by this group or that. I guarantee that every single one of us has
something in our lifestyle that could be considered "bad" by someone. Who gets
to decide what's bad? As long as your life choices don't deprive others of
life, liberty or property, then do whatever the fuck you want. Don't try to
make the lame argument that bigger houses consume more resources and it causes
you die sooner. Those people pay for the resources consumed and people have
jobs because of those resources consumed. And, as those resources become more
scarce, the prices will rise, thus leading to a reduction of consumption of
those resources. The economy is generally a self-regulating system (at least
when we stop trying to manipulate it for political ends.)

If someone wants to live in a Manhattan closet and someone else wants to live
in a Queens "McMansion," what right is it of ours to say otherwise?

For those complaining about "too big" then ask yourself, do you really "need"
a 27 inch monitor? An 11 inch MacBook Air is good enough for 37signals, why
should you need anything bigger? It isn't a necessity right? A computer isn't
really a necessity when you get down to it. Society hummed along just fine
before we had computers in every (smaller) home.

/end rant

~~~
rayiner
It's not just an issue of freedom. It's an issue of the public policies that
generate particular preferences. Our public policy creates tremendous
incentives that push people to those giant houses in the suburbs. E.g. here in
Illinois, the state is massively funding highway construction, while giving
little to no money to maintain the Chicago commuter rail network. Aging trains
and overcrowding on the rail that results from these policies dramatically
affects peoples "choices."

------
ChuckMcM
And backyards are getting smaller.

If you look at the whole trend, houses are bigger, lots are smaller. One of
the more interesting things I found in England when my sister was living there
was that many folks had a small house but a large garden, because they spent
most of their 'home' time in the garden rather than indoors. Whereas in the US
there are a lot of people for who the 'garden' (or the yard as we yanks refer
to it) is just a maintenance nightmare. Going so far as to install artificial
turf to reduce the time burden of keeping it looking nicely.

I think it is sad if people don't get out much, but recognize that more and
more of folks leisure time requires more electricity than is available out
there.

~~~
crusso
You really have to be specific about where you're collecting your anecdotal
data.

If you live in Texas or much of the Southern US, being outside during the
summer is nasty. As though the heat isn't bad enough, the mosquitoes are
positively vicious. When I lived in Texas, we spent most of May-September
indoors. It was great to have a big house there.

Likewise, you need to consider how snowbound many portions of the US are
during the winter months. Being outside from November to March in Minnesota is
a great way to freeze, but gardening isn't really possible.

When I lived in California, the weather was beautiful and the bugs were few.
We lived in smaller places and it didn't matter since we were outside so much
of the time.

It's a big country with many different climates.

~~~
kapitalx
It is very common for new house constructions to either tear down a few
adjacent house and build tightly placed houses on the land, or tear down a
single house and build a larger house on it. This is specially true in high
cost areas.

------
EliRivers
Here in the UK, about 850 sq ft is the average for a new home. Less than half.
Please do not complain about having lots of room until you've had to live here
:)

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14916580>

When it comes to governments and houses, the British public are idiots who
accept whatever is waved in front of them

~~~
refurb
That's one thing that amazed me when I was out in the UK. Even very nice homes
are relatively small. Living rooms where you could lie on the floor and touch
two walls were not uncommon.

It just goes to show you how humans can adapt to most any environment. A lot
of what we think we "need", we only "want".

~~~
EliRivers
I prefer to think of it as showing that the British public are idiots, fooled
by the rich to think that the UK is almost all built over (seriously, it's
common for people to come up with values like 50% urbanised, or even more,
when they are asked to estimate; it's actually about 10%, and of that around
half is gardens and other green spaces) and fed a constant barrage of
propaganda about how important it is to borrow as much money as they possibly
can to buy over-priced, badly built houses our grandparents would be ashamed
of.

I now relinquish my soapbox :p

------
amalag
The sound insulation inside US houses is also terrible. Maybe people wouldn't
need so much space if they had some decent sound insulation between rooms.
Otherwise it is the simple case of having a better house than your
acquaintances and thinking of the extra space as an "investment".

~~~
sliverstorm
Of course, that wouldn't be a problem if more houses were still built with
stuff like brick, clay, daub, or even logs- but any more, that's seen as low-
class.

As time goes by though, the more I begin to wonder if I wouldn't _prefer_ a
brick house, if only for the old-fashioned appearance and thermal buffering.

~~~
debacle
There's nothing like brick to keep a house cool in the summer time.

------
rayiner
Now that the housing bubble has collapsed and devastated the economies of the
housing-dependent south, I think you'll see the trend continue. I also think
you'll see cultural trends push things in the other direction.

I grew up in the DC suburbs, and my parents have a 6,000 sq-ft house. It's
completely unwieldy and costs a fortune to heat and cool, not to mention its
30 minutes from the nearest anything, but they cling to it because they
perceive having a huge house as a signal of "having made it."

My wife and I, in the next generation, feel the complete opposite way. Our
"dream houses" are 1,500 sq-ft high-rise condos in Chicago or a commutable
suburb like Evanston. I don't want my dad's hour-long car commute, I'd much
rather have a 25-minute train-commute where I can at least pull out my laptop
and get started on my inbox. We don't want the entire floors my parents don't
use, but we do want things like fixing leaky showers to be someone else's
problem. We don't want the big back yard, we'd rather have the 1,200 acre park
up the street and the lakefront beach.

I think there are many people in our age demographic (late 20's) who feel the
same way. As they reach the age when they've settled into careers and starting
families, they're much less inclined to give up their lifestyles for big
houses in the suburbs. You can even see this reflected in the media. In the
1970's there were tons of shows on TV where people lived in suburbs. Look at
the popular shows of today--nearly everyone lives in apartments in urban-ish
areas.

------
Alex3917
Ever notice that the bathrooms in houses built in the 60s are tiny, in houses
built in the 90s they were enormous, and now they're roughly back to 'normal'?
I wonder what this says about society.

~~~
ddt
It's mostly just the master-bath, too. The house I'm currently renting has a
master bath and walk-in closet that a person could comfortably live in, while
the other bathrooms barely have enough room to stand in.

------
dredmorbius
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak>

A bit minimal for my tastes, but highly ingenious. There are numerous other
"small space" videos / websites out there.

(Link is to "A Tiny Apartment Transforms into 24 Rooms" showing an ingeniously
engineered Hong Kong apartment).

------
debacle
My home is 1300 square feet. 800 more square feet would be a 20 x 40 room. I
don't know what I would do with that much space, but chances are it would make
my wife upset. That's a vast amount of space - my first office was only 300
square feet and that included the bathroom and was room for three of us with
plenty of space.

~~~
will_work4tears
I thought our house was too big as well when we bought it (also 1300 sqft). We
now have a son (he get's his own room) and will later try for another (wife
hopes for a girl) which will get a room - right now it's a craft room/spare
room for guests.

With a dog, two kids (an office and a garage for me to tool in) I don't know
if I could survive with anything much smaller. We don't need bigger though, I
don't feel cramped (living room is kinda small, get a few toys in there and it
is hazardous - yes, kids take over the living room, I never believed it
before).

~~~
peckrob
This is the exact position my wife and I are in as well. Kids change the
equation a lot.

We have our first kid on the way (due at the end of November) and currently
live in a 1,600 square foot house. I remember when I bought it, before I was
married, it seemed like more space than I would ever need. I had rooms that
had nothing in them for years until I got married.

The problem, in our case, is that while 1600 square feet is a good bit of
space, it's not very effectively laid out especially for a young family.
Probably half of that square footage is in the living room. The next biggest
room is the master on the first floor, then the other two "bedrooms" on the
second floor are almost too small to be usable. One is about the size of a
large closet and could just barely hold a twin bed (that's our office), and
the other, which is just slightly larger, was a guest room and will be the
nursery.

Space for all the stuff you "need" (of course, I wonder how much of this stuff
we actually need...) is a real issue. This became apparent now that we've
started buying stuff for a nursery as well as other baby accessories. It
completely filled the guest bedroom as well as a good bit of overflow into the
living room.

And this is just with one kid - we hope to try for another in a few years. I'm
guessing that kids sharing rooms was much more common in the 70s and earlier
than it now? I was born in '81, and always had a room to myself even after my
sister was born.

------
kevinpet
Single family homes may be a declining fraction of housing, and the lower end
may be getting replaced by townhomes or condos.

------
dsr_
And all the rooms are the wrong size.

(That's a joke.)

I suspect that the size of each kind of average apartment has not changed much
over the last few decades. One bedrooms are still about 650 sq ft, two
bedrooms about 780. Big buildings are designed for efficiency over the long
term, and don't partake in fads so much.

When you go out and buy a house, there's an inclination to buy as much house
as you think you can afford. More space is more flexibility, after all, and
after years living in not-quite-enough space, you want all that you can get.

~~~
natrius
Here are three new-ish apartment buildings in Austin that are 20-30% larger
than what you're saying was once normal:

[http://www.triangleaustin.com/residences/pages/floor-
plans.a...](http://www.triangleaustin.com/residences/pages/floor-plans.asp)

<http://www.mosaicaustin.com/pages/floor-plans.asp>

[http://gables.com/find/apartment/1071-gables-pressler-
austin...](http://gables.com/find/apartment/1071-gables-pressler-austin-tx)

I've been in older apartments in Austin, and I'd say they're definitely
getting bigger.

~~~
tthomas48
Interestingly enough a rather surprising number of families in Austin live in
apartments. 78741 has some of the highest number of children living close to
downtown and 87% of the housing in the area is apartments. This fits with the
importance of having a backyard. Perhaps this is a sunbelt trend? As the rust
belt is abandoned for the sun belt the value of a backyard seems less
important (as many never leave their air-conditioning)?

~~~
natrius
I personally value a backyard less after growing up with a rarely-used one,
but I think the prevalence of families living in apartments in that area is
just because they can't afford anything else. It's the cheapest place to live
in Austin, especially if you account for transportation.

------
maxerickson
I wonder how much of it is explained away the demographics of the typical
people buildings homes.

For example, people that are still well off after a few years of bad economy
seem like they are more likely to build a home than people that have had
financial stress during that period.

------
WalterBright
Interestingly, increasing the size of the house does not increase the cost by
a proportional amount. So, increasing the size is a relatively inexpensive way
to "upgrade" a house.

The "box" of the house is probably the least expensive part.

------
vl
Our cars are getting bigger as well (after reset in the seventies), so what?

------
ktizo
Does this mean that in the future, all houses will be massive and all the
doors will be circular and we will just roll between all the rooms like giant
beachballs made of meat?

