5 ms·

She doesn't even get into the main thing (in my opinion) that makes them so distasteful--car dependency for everything. Having lived in that situation vs a situ

by zip1234 10y ago

She doesn't even get into the main thing (in my opinion) that makes them so distasteful--car dependency for everything. Having lived in that situation vs a situation where I was in a smaller house, but walking distance to town, I much preferred the walking distance house. Being in a subdivision a half mile into a windy 25 mph road is not such a fun experience.

initram 10y ago
She very often talks about how attached garages make houses much uglier, and ruin the aesthetics in a lot of cases. Check out the rest of her articles!
- Turing_Machine 10y ago
  I like having a place to keep cars, tools, and sporting equipment. I suspect the people who buy these houses do as well.
  - siidooloo 10y ago
    The issue isn't that they have garages. The garages are randomly placed. They look glommed on.
  - nommm-nommm 10y ago
    She addresses that.
hibikir 10y ago
Here in the midwest we have a lot of houses that wound not qualify as McMansions at all, but that are just as car dependent as a huge McMansion: There is no town to go to, or if there is, the area around it is full of incredibly expensive houses. At the same time, I could build something as architecturally catastrophic as those McMansions in SF, clashing with every house around it,but then you have no car dependency. So ultimately your argument is that entire swaths of the US are distasteful by default. Car dependence today has more to do with city planning than anything else. The density that would make an area walkable isn't just hard to find, but downright illegal. The smallest allowed lot for a single family house around here would fit 4 houses in The Mission, San Francisco. Here race politics came into play, and everyone made cars mandatory to stop black people, who were poorer and couldn't afford bigger houses or cars, to move into suburbs. When everyone had a car, the town center dies, as the small stores can't compete with driving a little bit farther to the bigger store. This means that even neighborhoods with small houses that are grandfathered in are not walkable, as the places you'd walk to are gone. A friend of mine lives in a 1 bedroom bungalow with no yard. He parks on the street. And yet, he has a single business in a 20 minute walking trip. So don't look at just houses then, look at cities. The midwest is full of McCities.
- zip1234 10y ago
  I'm not saying distasteful--I just think it is overrated to have a huge house vs a better location. Generally a McMansion sacrifices the location for the huge house.

by zip1234 10y ago

initram 10y ago

She very often talks about how attached garages make houses much uglier, and ruin the aesthetics in a lot of cases. Check out the rest of her articles!

Turing_Machine 10y ago
I like having a place to keep cars, tools, and sporting equipment. I suspect the people who buy these houses do as well.
- siidooloo 10y ago
  The issue isn't that they have garages. The garages are randomly placed. They look glommed on.
- nommm-nommm 10y ago
  She addresses that.

hibikir 10y ago

Here in the midwest we have a lot of houses that wound not qualify as McMansions at all, but that are just as car dependent as a huge McMansion: There is no town to go to, or if there is, the area around it is full of incredibly expensive houses. At the same time, I could build something as architecturally catastrophic as those McMansions in SF, clashing with every house around it,but then you have no car dependency. So ultimately your argument is that entire swaths of the US are distasteful by default. Car dependence today has more to do with city planning than anything else. The density that would make an area walkable isn't just hard to find, but downright illegal. The smallest allowed lot for a single family house around here would fit 4 houses in The Mission, San Francisco. Here race politics came into play, and everyone made cars mandatory to stop black people, who were poorer and couldn't afford bigger houses or cars, to move into suburbs. When everyone had a car, the town center dies, as the small stores can't compete with driving a little bit farther to the bigger store. This means that even neighborhoods with small houses that are grandfathered in are not walkable, as the places you'd walk to are gone. A friend of mine lives in a 1 bedroom bungalow with no yard. He parks on the street. And yet, he has a single business in a 20 minute walking trip. So don't look at just houses then, look at cities. The midwest is full of McCities.

zip1234 10y ago
I'm not saying distasteful--I just think it is overrated to have a huge house vs a better location. Generally a McMansion sacrifices the location for the huge house.