5 ms·

Why Are American Houses So Big?

43 points by prostoalex 7y ago

Causality1 7y ago
There are advantages to room besides financial return and social standing. I like having room for bookshelves, and a big desk, and a workshop. I like being able to use power tools or blast music at any volume I want without disturbing the neighbors. I respect your lifestyle choice if "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" simply isn't convenient enough for you, but for me, bliss is not having to know my neighbors.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Spot on. To me the "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" thing is absurd on the face of it because it's missing that urban and rural life are fundamentally different in a lot of ways. If you live in the centre of a city, it's normal to live a sort of 'just-in-time' lifestyle whereby you just pop to the shops whenever to grab an ingredient, perhaps wander to a cafe for lunch, etc. In the country it's far more DIY. You have a big freezer / fridge and food stocks and just sort it out. If you want to cut up some wood, build a cabinet, whatever, you don't go to the community space or whatever, you do it on the land. And if you do go to the store - well you think about what you actually need to buy. The idea that people are burning a gallon of fuel solely to grab milk is absurd, more likely they just do without it until the next time they're in town, or prepare in advance.
  - analog31 7y ago
    I'd like to see stats confirming that rural folks are that efficient with their lifestyles and vehicle / fuel use. One thing to consider is that most rural folks still work regular jobs, and commute to those jobs every day. At my workplace at the edge of town, the main difference between the city and rural folks is how many hours are spent commuting every week.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      Sure, so in that case you pick something up on the way to/from work. I'm not arguing that rural lifestyles have lower transport requirements in their totality - they obviously don't - just that the '15 mins to get X' example is absurd, because it describes a strawman journey that very rarely actually occurs. Even in my youth living in the suburbs of a small town in the UK you rarely went "in to town" to buy one thing because it's just not worth it.
- chongli 7y ago
  Does your house have a formal living room and formal dining room? North American houses often have these large rooms that people never use. Most people spend the vast majority of their waking time at home in the kitchen.
- moneytide1 7y ago
  There is something to be said about having extra space to reinforce mental fortitude. In the same way a cluttered desk or crowded workspace can provoke a feedback loop that causes a cluttered mind - a safe, familiar living space with plenty of room to pace, store, or host crowds can provide a certain mental clarity. Add to this the ability to step outside into a wide open environment with a view of a distant horizon. A liberated mind.
  - dagw 7y ago
    Add to this the ability to step outside into a wide open environment with a view of a distant horizon. A liberated mind. Completely agree with this point, but it also completely separated from the size of your house. You can have a huge house and not be able to see the horizon because you're surrounded by equally huge houses in all directions. Or you can have 500 sq ft cabin on the edge of a lake that is the only building in a 3 mile radius.
    - moneytide1 7y ago
      This sounds like a symptom of compaction. Or the ratio of land to indoor foot (or meter) space is high enough to block each other's skyline, unless groups are willing to venture outside the entire neighborhood. But compaction is a preference for some.
- dagw 7y ago
  but for me, bliss is not having to know my neighbors. Even as a hard core urbanite, I can get that. For me bliss is having the option to walk everywhere I need to go. But a close second on my list would be living within walking distance of great skiing and/or kayaking and not being able to see my neighbors house from my property. What I don't get is the weird compromise of being so far out from the city you have to drive everywhere, but not so far that you're actually close to nature, and still surrounded by dozens and dozens of houses within spitting distance of your front door.
scottlocklin 7y ago
Why do you need such a big house, citizen? You can live in a drainage pipe; why do you need more room than this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po Someone should start a magazine for bugmen. It can feature apple products, human habitations barely above tent level and delicious meals made with fried crickets.
- wahern 7y ago
  I remember seeing towers of tubular pods reported on television as being just around the corner in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Perhaps Beyond 2000? In retrospect it was a fascinating idea for the shock value, and clearly intended (by journalists) to elicit your type of response. As an adult I now understand that America has always had pods--they're called hotel rooms, and countless families live in low-budget hotels across the country, both urban and rural. A single-wide trailer is just an elongated pod. (I lived in both as a kid.) I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evokes independence and frugality.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    > I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evoke independence and frugality. This is definitely in line with my thinking (though I'm not American). I currently live in a small home, approx 40-50sqm. But it's detached, has a bit of land (slightly less than I'd like, but enough to do stuff outside and not feel like you're encroaching on the neighbours). The problem with urban apartment living is that you're absolutely forced into a ton of negotiations. How loud is too loud - whose wall is whose - who pays for the structure - who owns the land - the list is almost endless. For me, the mental overhead that's just always present is really draining.
JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
Because of regulations increasing the costs to being building in anti-growth areas, the only thing builders can profitably produce is luxury housing. Many astute observers will point out that cost per square foot hasn't changed much in the past few decades, though the number of square feet has. However, it doesn't seem to align with what many Americans actually want, which is affordable housing. Those looking to unload their McMansions in the coming years should be forewarned they may not be demand for them: they're often located far from jobs, offer too much space versus the shrinking family size, and demand enormous upkeep. To an extent, remote work might make the first factor more palatable, but the latter two remain problematic.
rayiner 7y ago
American house are big because we are rich and lightly taxed. It’s striking to me that the whole article goes without mentioning the wealth difference between Americans and most Europeans. The gap in household disposable income between the US and France is comparable to the gap between France and Latvia or Chile: https://financialobserver.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/Polands-good-year-in-OECD.jpg https://financialobserver.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017....
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- koyote 7y ago
  That would mean that countries with even higher disposable income than the US have even larger houses. This is evidently not the case. (I am also not a fan of using averages in terms of comparing income across countries)
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  This doesn't fit because the income range between the country side (where you can have huge houses and lots of land for cheap) vs the city (where a postage stamp house is expensive) doesn't match with income levels. (low in the country vs high in the city).
- pcwalton 7y ago
  Hong Kong has a gross disposable income of 327K HKD [1], equivalent to $41,792 USD. That's higher than every country in that list except the US. Needless to say, Hong Kong houses—fewer than 500 sq ft on average—are nowhere near the size of American houses. Canada is below France in that table, but Canada has large houses as well—2,200 sq ft, compared to below 1,500 sq ft for France. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/755874/hong-kong-disposable-income-per-capita/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/755874/hong-kong-disposa...
  - dexterbt1 7y ago
    To add, HK's land area is orders of magnitude smaller than the U.S. Maybe Americans can simply afford to build on far bigger land given their income.
esotericn 7y ago
Isn't the reasonable question more - why aren't all houses big? I don't want a big house because I don't want to have to decorate a bunch of big rooms and don't have a family to house - but I would quite like a decent amount of land, both for the setback and for gardening, forestry, etc. For the most part, the downsides to having a large home are primarily financial, secondary effects are environmental (we can probably fix the transport issues, but sprawl actually affects ecosystems). I mean, if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country.
- notus 7y ago
  Taking care of a large home is a lot of work. Unless someone is a stay at home person you're pretty much guaranteed to need a maid every once in a while.
  - mikeash 7y ago
    Thankfully, professional cleaners are not difficult to find.
  - RobertRoberts 7y ago
    Why a maid? I have a few relatives with very large homes. (one has a pool and tennis court) and none of them have maids. But also, I've had relatives that were maids, and the places they cleaned weren't always large. More often the owners were just busy people.
    - conductr 7y ago
      That’s me, I’ll make my self busy doing anything if it justifies the maid. I just don’t enjoy that type of work, I loath it quite a bit
      - souprock 7y ago
        What about your privacy and security? That maid is essentially a stranger, wandering around in your house, with a perfect excuse to be poking into everything.
tempsy 7y ago
I recall reading some recent stories on how Boomers are having trouble selling their McMansions because Millennial buyers aren’t interested in big houses in the suburbs. Given the resurgence in urban living, lower birth rates, and higher debt burden among millennials/Gen Z I would predict average home sizes will shrink...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- souprock 7y ago
  Don't count on lower birth rates long-term. Birth rates show decently strong inheritance. The more kids your parents had, the more kids you are likely to have. Changes in our environment, causing the demographic transition, are only a temporary stumble because people are not equally effected.
- Gustomaximus 7y ago
  Same is happening with antiques as pieces are often to big for increasingly apartment and smaller houses. And seems to be generally less desirable as status goods.
- conductr 7y ago
  My definition of McMansion is in the urban core. It’s where they tore down the original bungalow or something old and small and erected a suburb sized house. If it’s having trouble selling it’s because of money. Price of the home with high land value or cost of the private schooling that many people with that budget would require.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    I’m pretty sure the term McMansion is linked to sprawling suburbs that popped up starting in the late 80s/90s. Ive never heard it used to describe any urban home.
    - conductr 7y ago
fma 7y ago
IMHO 15 minute for milk is a quite an exaggeration. I live in the burbs and there's shopping plazas within 5 minute drive of the entrance of any neighborhood. Plazas are anchored by a major grocery store and other supporting stores (restaurants, services, urgent care) surround it. I'd agree with the long commute. I'd move closer to work, but I can all but guarantee in a few years I'd find a new job - and I'm not going to move every time I find a new job. As far as big houses...land is cheap where I'm at (Atlanta suburbs)...so why not? Ranch style homes are expensive by the square foot. It's easy for a developer to add a 2nd story and double your square footage without charging much more for the house. Around here you can dig deeper and get yourself an unfinished daylight basement for ~$40k more. So you can go from essentially a 1 story style ranch home, triple your square footage (basement, main + 2nd floor) for not even double the price for a 1 story home. Just to give some numbers for my neighborhood w/ the Zillow Estimated price. Neighborhood is 4 years old My neighbor's 1 story ranch: 2400 square feet $322k, My 2 story house: 3400 square feet, $404k House w/ Finished Basement: 4310 Square feet, $513k My house and the house w/ basement have a 2 story foyers and living room. So basically, we have so much space that the 2nd floor doesn't need to be fully utilized because we like to stare into 30 feet high ceilings.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
Before people get defensive, this is just a bunch of personal observations, not judgement. I think Americans generally like everything bigger for some reason. When I came to the US from Germany I noticed that everything was much bigger here. Kitchen stoves, fridges, office chairs, food portion sizes, TV sets, beds, candy bars, cars and so on. Not efficient, just big. I knew a lot of well off people in Germany whose houses were much smaller than what Americans of the same status would be living in. Not sure why that is but it seems cultural to prefer big things. Maybe it got started in the 50s when American cars were huge just for the sake of it.
segmondy 7y ago
I joke, but it's not really a joke. American dream is not about owning a house, going to school and being more successful. American dream is about owning a bigger house than your neighbors, having nicer cars than your friends, being visual successful. Most people who will give you a threshold for their financial happiness will become unhappy if all their neighbors exceed them. Social signaling by wealth is very strong out here. It's true that you can now see it in other parts of the world but it was exported by US to them
- solotronics 7y ago
  This is almost definitely related to the strong consumer propoganda which has been applied so consistently since WW2. If you think what I am saying is ridiculous look at the history of who invented advertising. Edward Bernays was the nephew of Freud and pioneered modern propoganda and advertising methods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays "In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary by linking the imagery of an overflowing cup with subliminal images of vaginas and venereal disease."
- whalesalad 7y ago
  What you’re observing is not the American dream. It’s pop-culture in big population centers. Not everyone is competing with their neighbors. Some of us just want comfortable homes and like driving fast cars.
- jkmcf 7y ago
  The new dream is to have more storage lockers than your neighbor. My brother has 2... I wish I were kidding. Where I live in Colorado, there are acres of self storage, indoor with A/C and outdoor, everywhere these days, with more being built.
lacampbell 7y ago
Because America is a very wealthy country with a relatively low population density.
jandrewrogers 7y ago
I think this is a distinctive cultural affectation. In America, there is a strong historical context that a man's home is his castle, from the earliest history of the country, and in that sense every man can be lord of a small fiefdom. This isn't just theoretical, the rights attached to property ownership are extensive in America, and in some regions asymptotically approaches a practical approximation of sovereignty. In this context, bigger is generally better. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but my experience is that Americans view property as "personal sovereignty" to a much greater degree than people in other parts of the world, who view it more as an investment or generational asset. In the US, it comes with the implication of freedom to do your own thing without state interference. (In some parts of the US, this is de facto literal.) That said, I prefer to live in a relatively small place in the middle of a real city. I don't know how to fill a large house in a way that can be rationalized, though I have owned such houses.
falcolas 7y ago
My parents house was big for one main reason - it was stupidly cheap to build it. 10,000 sq ft on 5 acres of land for under $100k (adjusted to 2019). My dad worked as a lineman for Ma Bell, and could afford to build it with no mortgage. You can’t do that today.
bkjelden 7y ago
The actual building materials used to build a house - the lumber, drywall, shingles, etc - are really cheap relative to the cost of upgrading the finishes within the house, as well as the cost of acquiring the land and permits necessary to build (at least in most high demand areas). And of course with the advent of things like power tools and supply chains that can cheaply delivery (relatively) uniform building materials, the actual process of physically constructing the house is easier than ever. So, if you're in the business of building homes, one of the most cost effective ways to make the house seem more luxurious is simply to make it bigger. Also, big houses are not strictly a suburban phenomenon. If you've ever been to a gentrified urban neighborhood it's not that uncommon to see a block where they've torn down almost every 900 sq ft bungalow and replaced it with a 3500 sq ft 3 story box.
alanfranz 7y ago
I'm from Italy, albeit not from a huge urban area... And I find the 1600sqft number for houses not exactly large, maybe just "normal", if it includes a cellar, an attic, and so on. Hey, if you speak of standalone houses, that's probably the minimum size here! If you want to go for a smaller size, you'd probably get a flat, or possibly a semi-detached house. And, personally, I think that a comfortable living with some private space for everyone is hard to achieve in less than 120 square meters for, let's say, a 4-people household. Too much noise, too much clutter.
amriksohata 7y ago
Because of a lot more habitable land and cheaper locally sourced building materials. Not to mention no minimum wage for construction workers.
RickJWagner 7y ago
I work remotely, which I greatly enjoy. One day a while back I was talking to a co-worker who resides in the UK. (I'm in the central US.) We were talking about woodworking. I know my friend had just bought a new table saw, I was wondering how things were going. My friend complained that it took him a long time to setup his saw every time he wanted to use it. It was contained in a small room with several other tools, he had to pick which one to plug in and put in the 'free space'. I explained I kept my table saw in it's own place, set up in the extra garage. He was stunned that there could be such an extravagance. I'm sure everybody would have a bigger house (and garage) if the situation allowed it. It's nice. It's only human nature to like such a thing.

43 points by prostoalex 7y ago

There are advantages to room besides financial return and social standing. I like having room for bookshelves, and a big desk, and a workshop. I like being able to use power tools or blast music at any volume I want without disturbing the neighbors. I respect your lifestyle choice if "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" simply isn't convenient enough for you, but for me, bliss is not having to know my neighbors.

esotericn 7y ago
Spot on. To me the "driving 15 minutes to get a gallon of milk" thing is absurd on the face of it because it's missing that urban and rural life are fundamentally different in a lot of ways. If you live in the centre of a city, it's normal to live a sort of 'just-in-time' lifestyle whereby you just pop to the shops whenever to grab an ingredient, perhaps wander to a cafe for lunch, etc. In the country it's far more DIY. You have a big freezer / fridge and food stocks and just sort it out. If you want to cut up some wood, build a cabinet, whatever, you don't go to the community space or whatever, you do it on the land. And if you do go to the store - well you think about what you actually need to buy. The idea that people are burning a gallon of fuel solely to grab milk is absurd, more likely they just do without it until the next time they're in town, or prepare in advance.
- analog31 7y ago
  I'd like to see stats confirming that rural folks are that efficient with their lifestyles and vehicle / fuel use. One thing to consider is that most rural folks still work regular jobs, and commute to those jobs every day. At my workplace at the edge of town, the main difference between the city and rural folks is how many hours are spent commuting every week.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    Sure, so in that case you pick something up on the way to/from work. I'm not arguing that rural lifestyles have lower transport requirements in their totality - they obviously don't - just that the '15 mins to get X' example is absurd, because it describes a strawman journey that very rarely actually occurs. Even in my youth living in the suburbs of a small town in the UK you rarely went "in to town" to buy one thing because it's just not worth it.
chongli 7y ago
Does your house have a formal living room and formal dining room? North American houses often have these large rooms that people never use. Most people spend the vast majority of their waking time at home in the kitchen.
moneytide1 7y ago
There is something to be said about having extra space to reinforce mental fortitude. In the same way a cluttered desk or crowded workspace can provoke a feedback loop that causes a cluttered mind - a safe, familiar living space with plenty of room to pace, store, or host crowds can provide a certain mental clarity. Add to this the ability to step outside into a wide open environment with a view of a distant horizon. A liberated mind.
- dagw 7y ago
  Add to this the ability to step outside into a wide open environment with a view of a distant horizon. A liberated mind. Completely agree with this point, but it also completely separated from the size of your house. You can have a huge house and not be able to see the horizon because you're surrounded by equally huge houses in all directions. Or you can have 500 sq ft cabin on the edge of a lake that is the only building in a 3 mile radius.
  - moneytide1 7y ago
    This sounds like a symptom of compaction. Or the ratio of land to indoor foot (or meter) space is high enough to block each other's skyline, unless groups are willing to venture outside the entire neighborhood. But compaction is a preference for some.
dagw 7y ago
but for me, bliss is not having to know my neighbors. Even as a hard core urbanite, I can get that. For me bliss is having the option to walk everywhere I need to go. But a close second on my list would be living within walking distance of great skiing and/or kayaking and not being able to see my neighbors house from my property. What I don't get is the weird compromise of being so far out from the city you have to drive everywhere, but not so far that you're actually close to nature, and still surrounded by dozens and dozens of houses within spitting distance of your front door.

scottlocklin 7y ago

Why do you need such a big house, citizen? You can live in a drainage pipe; why do you need more room than this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt0VMT3t-Po Someone should start a magazine for bugmen. It can feature apple products, human habitations barely above tent level and delicious meals made with fried crickets.

wahern 7y ago
I remember seeing towers of tubular pods reported on television as being just around the corner in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Perhaps Beyond 2000? In retrospect it was a fascinating idea for the shock value, and clearly intended (by journalists) to elicit your type of response. As an adult I now understand that America has always had pods--they're called hotel rooms, and countless families live in low-budget hotels across the country, both urban and rural. A single-wide trailer is just an elongated pod. (I lived in both as a kid.) I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evokes independence and frugality.
- esotericn 7y ago
  > I think what Americans really object to isn't the pod, per se, but the fact that they're intended to be densely packed in urban environments. Put that same pod in an idyllic, rural setting and all of a sudden it evoke independence and frugality. This is definitely in line with my thinking (though I'm not American). I currently live in a small home, approx 40-50sqm. But it's detached, has a bit of land (slightly less than I'd like, but enough to do stuff outside and not feel like you're encroaching on the neighbours). The problem with urban apartment living is that you're absolutely forced into a ton of negotiations. How loud is too loud - whose wall is whose - who pays for the structure - who owns the land - the list is almost endless. For me, the mental overhead that's just always present is really draining.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago

Because of regulations increasing the costs to being building in anti-growth areas, the only thing builders can profitably produce is luxury housing. Many astute observers will point out that cost per square foot hasn't changed much in the past few decades, though the number of square feet has. However, it doesn't seem to align with what many Americans actually want, which is affordable housing. Those looking to unload their McMansions in the coming years should be forewarned they may not be demand for them: they're often located far from jobs, offer too much space versus the shrinking family size, and demand enormous upkeep. To an extent, remote work might make the first factor more palatable, but the latter two remain problematic.

rayiner 7y ago

American house are big because we are rich and lightly taxed. It’s striking to me that the whole article goes without mentioning the wealth difference between Americans and most Europeans. The gap in household disposable income between the US and France is comparable to the gap between France and Latvia or Chile: https://financialobserver.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/01/Polands-good-year-in-OECD.jpg https://financialobserver.eu/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017....

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
koyote 7y ago
That would mean that countries with even higher disposable income than the US have even larger houses. This is evidently not the case. (I am also not a fan of using averages in terms of comparing income across countries)
RobertRoberts 7y ago
This doesn't fit because the income range between the country side (where you can have huge houses and lots of land for cheap) vs the city (where a postage stamp house is expensive) doesn't match with income levels. (low in the country vs high in the city).
pcwalton 7y ago
Hong Kong has a gross disposable income of 327K HKD [1], equivalent to $41,792 USD. That's higher than every country in that list except the US. Needless to say, Hong Kong houses—fewer than 500 sq ft on average—are nowhere near the size of American houses. Canada is below France in that table, but Canada has large houses as well—2,200 sq ft, compared to below 1,500 sq ft for France. [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/755874/hong-kong-disposable-income-per-capita/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/755874/hong-kong-disposa...
- dexterbt1 7y ago
  To add, HK's land area is orders of magnitude smaller than the U.S. Maybe Americans can simply afford to build on far bigger land given their income.

esotericn 7y ago

Isn't the reasonable question more - why aren't all houses big? I don't want a big house because I don't want to have to decorate a bunch of big rooms and don't have a family to house - but I would quite like a decent amount of land, both for the setback and for gardening, forestry, etc. For the most part, the downsides to having a large home are primarily financial, secondary effects are environmental (we can probably fix the transport issues, but sprawl actually affects ecosystems). I mean, if you can afford a big old mansion in Central London you buy it and live in it. It seems to me that all the article is saying is that America is a wealthy country.

notus 7y ago
Taking care of a large home is a lot of work. Unless someone is a stay at home person you're pretty much guaranteed to need a maid every once in a while.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Thankfully, professional cleaners are not difficult to find.
- RobertRoberts 7y ago
  Why a maid? I have a few relatives with very large homes. (one has a pool and tennis court) and none of them have maids. But also, I've had relatives that were maids, and the places they cleaned weren't always large. More often the owners were just busy people.
  - conductr 7y ago
    That’s me, I’ll make my self busy doing anything if it justifies the maid. I just don’t enjoy that type of work, I loath it quite a bit
    - souprock 7y ago
      What about your privacy and security? That maid is essentially a stranger, wandering around in your house, with a perfect excuse to be poking into everything.

tempsy 7y ago

I recall reading some recent stories on how Boomers are having trouble selling their McMansions because Millennial buyers aren’t interested in big houses in the suburbs. Given the resurgence in urban living, lower birth rates, and higher debt burden among millennials/Gen Z I would predict average home sizes will shrink...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
souprock 7y ago
Don't count on lower birth rates long-term. Birth rates show decently strong inheritance. The more kids your parents had, the more kids you are likely to have. Changes in our environment, causing the demographic transition, are only a temporary stumble because people are not equally effected.
Gustomaximus 7y ago
Same is happening with antiques as pieces are often to big for increasingly apartment and smaller houses. And seems to be generally less desirable as status goods.
conductr 7y ago
My definition of McMansion is in the urban core. It’s where they tore down the original bungalow or something old and small and erected a suburb sized house. If it’s having trouble selling it’s because of money. Price of the home with high land value or cost of the private schooling that many people with that budget would require.
- tempsy 7y ago
  I’m pretty sure the term McMansion is linked to sprawling suburbs that popped up starting in the late 80s/90s. Ive never heard it used to describe any urban home.
  - conductr 7y ago

fma 7y ago

IMHO 15 minute for milk is a quite an exaggeration. I live in the burbs and there's shopping plazas within 5 minute drive of the entrance of any neighborhood. Plazas are anchored by a major grocery store and other supporting stores (restaurants, services, urgent care) surround it. I'd agree with the long commute. I'd move closer to work, but I can all but guarantee in a few years I'd find a new job - and I'm not going to move every time I find a new job. As far as big houses...land is cheap where I'm at (Atlanta suburbs)...so why not? Ranch style homes are expensive by the square foot. It's easy for a developer to add a 2nd story and double your square footage without charging much more for the house. Around here you can dig deeper and get yourself an unfinished daylight basement for ~$40k more. So you can go from essentially a 1 story style ranch home, triple your square footage (basement, main + 2nd floor) for not even double the price for a 1 story home. Just to give some numbers for my neighborhood w/ the Zillow Estimated price. Neighborhood is 4 years old My neighbor's 1 story ranch: 2400 square feet $322k, My 2 story house: 3400 square feet, $404k House w/ Finished Basement: 4310 Square feet, $513k My house and the house w/ basement have a 2 story foyers and living room. So basically, we have so much space that the 2nd floor doesn't need to be fully utilized because we like to stare into 30 feet high ceilings.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

Before people get defensive, this is just a bunch of personal observations, not judgement. I think Americans generally like everything bigger for some reason. When I came to the US from Germany I noticed that everything was much bigger here. Kitchen stoves, fridges, office chairs, food portion sizes, TV sets, beds, candy bars, cars and so on. Not efficient, just big. I knew a lot of well off people in Germany whose houses were much smaller than what Americans of the same status would be living in. Not sure why that is but it seems cultural to prefer big things. Maybe it got started in the 50s when American cars were huge just for the sake of it.

segmondy 7y ago

I joke, but it's not really a joke. American dream is not about owning a house, going to school and being more successful. American dream is about owning a bigger house than your neighbors, having nicer cars than your friends, being visual successful. Most people who will give you a threshold for their financial happiness will become unhappy if all their neighbors exceed them. Social signaling by wealth is very strong out here. It's true that you can now see it in other parts of the world but it was exported by US to them

solotronics 7y ago
This is almost definitely related to the strong consumer propoganda which has been applied so consistently since WW2. If you think what I am saying is ridiculous look at the history of who invented advertising. Edward Bernays was the nephew of Freud and pioneered modern propoganda and advertising methods. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Bernays "In the 1930s, his Dixie Cup campaign was designed to convince consumers that only disposable cups were sanitary by linking the imagery of an overflowing cup with subliminal images of vaginas and venereal disease."
whalesalad 7y ago
What you’re observing is not the American dream. It’s pop-culture in big population centers. Not everyone is competing with their neighbors. Some of us just want comfortable homes and like driving fast cars.
jkmcf 7y ago
The new dream is to have more storage lockers than your neighbor. My brother has 2... I wish I were kidding. Where I live in Colorado, there are acres of self storage, indoor with A/C and outdoor, everywhere these days, with more being built.

lacampbell 7y ago

Because America is a very wealthy country with a relatively low population density.

jandrewrogers 7y ago

I think this is a distinctive cultural affectation. In America, there is a strong historical context that a man's home is his castle, from the earliest history of the country, and in that sense every man can be lord of a small fiefdom. This isn't just theoretical, the rights attached to property ownership are extensive in America, and in some regions asymptotically approaches a practical approximation of sovereignty. In this context, bigger is generally better. Someone can correct me if I am wrong, but my experience is that Americans view property as "personal sovereignty" to a much greater degree than people in other parts of the world, who view it more as an investment or generational asset. In the US, it comes with the implication of freedom to do your own thing without state interference. (In some parts of the US, this is de facto literal.) That said, I prefer to live in a relatively small place in the middle of a real city. I don't know how to fill a large house in a way that can be rationalized, though I have owned such houses.

falcolas 7y ago

My parents house was big for one main reason - it was stupidly cheap to build it. 10,000 sq ft on 5 acres of land for under $100k (adjusted to 2019). My dad worked as a lineman for Ma Bell, and could afford to build it with no mortgage. You can’t do that today.

bkjelden 7y ago

The actual building materials used to build a house - the lumber, drywall, shingles, etc - are really cheap relative to the cost of upgrading the finishes within the house, as well as the cost of acquiring the land and permits necessary to build (at least in most high demand areas). And of course with the advent of things like power tools and supply chains that can cheaply delivery (relatively) uniform building materials, the actual process of physically constructing the house is easier than ever. So, if you're in the business of building homes, one of the most cost effective ways to make the house seem more luxurious is simply to make it bigger. Also, big houses are not strictly a suburban phenomenon. If you've ever been to a gentrified urban neighborhood it's not that uncommon to see a block where they've torn down almost every 900 sq ft bungalow and replaced it with a 3500 sq ft 3 story box.

alanfranz 7y ago

I'm from Italy, albeit not from a huge urban area... And I find the 1600sqft number for houses not exactly large, maybe just "normal", if it includes a cellar, an attic, and so on. Hey, if you speak of standalone houses, that's probably the minimum size here! If you want to go for a smaller size, you'd probably get a flat, or possibly a semi-detached house. And, personally, I think that a comfortable living with some private space for everyone is hard to achieve in less than 120 square meters for, let's say, a 4-people household. Too much noise, too much clutter.

amriksohata 7y ago

Because of a lot more habitable land and cheaper locally sourced building materials. Not to mention no minimum wage for construction workers.

RickJWagner 7y ago

I work remotely, which I greatly enjoy. One day a while back I was talking to a co-worker who resides in the UK. (I'm in the central US.) We were talking about woodworking. I know my friend had just bought a new table saw, I was wondering how things were going. My friend complained that it took him a long time to setup his saw every time he wanted to use it. It was contained in a small room with several other tools, he had to pick which one to plug in and put in the 'free space'. I explained I kept my table saw in it's own place, set up in the extra garage. He was stunned that there could be such an extravagance. I'm sure everybody would have a bigger house (and garage) if the situation allowed it. It's nice. It's only human nature to like such a thing.