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Big Houses Are Not Green: America's McMansion Problem

By Stan Cox, AlterNet. Posted September 8, 2007.


The recent mansion boom produced millions of energy-wasting homes with thousands of square feet that Americans don't need -- not the behavior of a society that's thinking about a sustainable future.

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In Los Gatos, Calif., controversy has raged this summer over the city planning commission’s approval of a proposed hillside home that will occupy a whopping 3,600 square feet – and that's just the basement.  Atop that walkout basement will be 5,500 more square feet worth of house.  

The prospective owner says he’ll build to "green" standards, but at the Aug. 8 meeting where the permit was approved, the city's lone dissenting planning commissioner stated the obvious when he told the owner, "You have a 9,000-square-foot house with a three-car garage and a pool. I don't see that as green."

The just-popped housing bubble has left behind a couple of million families in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure.  It has also spawned a new generation of big, deluxe, under-occupied houses bulked up on low-interest steroids.

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) estimates that 42 percent of newly built houses now have more than 2,400 square feet of floorspace, compared with only 10 percent in 1970.  In 1970 there were so few three-bathroom houses that they didn't even to show up in NAHB statistics.  By 2005, one out of every four new houses had at least three bathrooms.

Smaller families are living in bigger houses.  In the America of 1950, single-family dwellings were being were built with an average of 290 square feet of living space per resident; in 2003, a family moving into a typical new house had almost 900 square feet per person in which to ramble around. 

Not surprisingly, monster houses are especially popular in Texas; in Austin, regarded as the state’s progressive haven, 235 new houses of at least 5,000 square feet each were built in a single recent year; 41 of them had between 8,000 and 29,000 square feet. In the size of our dwellings, North Americans are world champions. The United Nations says houses and apartments in Pakistan or Nicaragua typically provide one-third of a room per person; it’s half a room per person in Syria and Azerbaijan, about one room in Eastern Europe, an average of a room and a half in Western Europe, and two whole rooms per person in the United States and Canada (not counting spaces like bathrooms, hallways, porches, etc.)

The U.N. defines a room as "an area large enough to hold a bed for an adult" -- at least 6 feet by 7 feet.  That's not an uncommon size in many countries, but it’s not exactly the kind of room that an American real-estate agent would be eager to walk through with a prospective homebuyer.  (A dozen such rooms would fit into a single bedroom in href="http://www.deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,695193773,00.html">this surgeon’s house.)  

To go along with those big primary homes, Americans now own 5.7 million non-rental vacation houses with a median size of 1,300 square feet; together, those second homes represent enough surplus living space to accommodate the nation’s homeless population ten times over. Challenges to the oversized-house trend are being mounted across the country, most often on aesthetic grounds.  Monumental bad taste can be morbidly fascinating (as when CBS’s 60 Minutes paid a visit to the suburbs of "Vulgaria" last March), but a far more serious issue is the lasting environmental damage these incredible hulks can do. Since 1940, the average number of people living in an American home has dropped from 3.7 to 2.6, but the average size of new houses has doubled.  That extra space has gone partly to free children from having to share a bedroom, partly to accommodate Americans’ ever-growing bulk of material possessions, and partly to make room for more lavish entertaining. 

But if there seems to be no limit to the size of the material- and energy-hogging houses built in recent years, it's thanks most of all to that good old law of supply-and-demand run amok. 

A little brown house beats a big green one

The current slump notwithstanding, homebuilding continues to account for a big slice of the nation's resource consumption.  For example, the manufacture and transportation of concrete to build a typical 2,500-square-foot house generates the equivalent of 36 metric tons of carbon dioxide. 

Construction and remodeling of residences accounts for three-fourths of all the lumber consumed each year in the US.  In this business, there’s no substitute for good old-fashioned wood. Laid end-to-end, the pieces of lumber required to build a typical 3,000-square-foot house would stretch for more than four miles.  

In its review of the year 2004, the Western Wood Products Association (WWPA) crowed that "an all-time high of 27.6 billion board feet of lumber was used in residential construction, framing some 2.07 million housing starts recorded for the year. Lumber used in repair and remodeling surpassed 20 billion board feet for the first time in history."  Consumption broke records again in 2005 for the fourth straight year, only to fall with the housing slump that began in 2006. Wood, unlike concrete, gets some credit for being a "renewable" resource.  Spokespeople for the lumber and construction industries emphasize that they are taking greenhouse carbon out of the atmosphere and locking it away in wood-frame houses. 

That’s correct, as far as it goes; about half of the mass in a stick of lumber is carbon.   But putting that wood into a house is a one-time capture, whereas the house itself will spend decades cranking out carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Over a 50-year lifetime, greenhouse emissions caused by the standard American house account for 30 to 40 times the weight of the carbon that's socked away in its wood frame.  The bigger the house, the bigger the emissions.

Furthermore, with the currently popular focus on the sheer quantity of greenhouse gas emissions, the ecological impact of uprooting complex forest ecosystems in favor of industrialized wood plantations doesn’t figure very prominently.  And a "green"-built house can require almost 50 percent more wood than a standard house of the same size. Hard times in the housing market will provide forests and the atmosphere at least a little bit of much-needed rest.

The current bust has already curbed lumber consumption, although WWPA expects demand to "rebound" in 2009.  Meanwhile, the American Chemistry Council reports that  production the plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) fell sharply in 2006. Environmentalists have long sought to stem the highly toxic production of PVC, 80 percent of which is used in construction.    

But, as environmentally significant as construction materials are, it’s estimated that only about one-tenth of a house’s total energy consumption occurs while it's being built; the other 90 percent happens while it’s being lived in.  That can be reduced by "green" construction, but making green houses too big can cancel out all of those gains.  A 2005 article (pdf) in the Journal of Industrial Ecology concluded,


[Block quote] A 1,500-square-foot house with mediocre energy-performance standards will use far less energy for heating and cooling than a 3,000-square-foot house of comparable geometry with much better energy detailing. Downsizing a conventionally framed house by 25 percent should save significantly more wood than substituting the most wood-efficient advanced framing techniques for that house. And it is easier to reduce the embodied energy of a house by making the house smaller than by searching for low embodied-energy materials.


Note the important word "geometry."  To make outsized suburban manors more interesting, builders tend to avoid boxy forms, loading up their product with multiple rooflines and gables, dormers, bay windows, and other protuberances.  Such houses have more surface area than does a squared-off house of the same size, thus requiring more fossil-fuel to cool and heat them.  Additional energy is wasted by the longer heating/cooling ducts and hot-water pipes in a big house. And for a given house design – "green" or standard, monolithic or pseudo-Victorian -- the bigger its square footage, the bigger its environmental footprint.  

A question of "want"

Although American houses have been growing since World War II, the low mortgage rates and hot housing market of the past decade are widely credited with pushing square footage to record levels. It’s partly simple math and partly not-so-simple psychology -- and it's all about money.

At the interest rates prevailing in 2003, according to the Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan Clements, you could buy a 40-percent bigger house and owe $273 less per month on your mortgage than if you were buying the smaller house at 1983-level interest rates.

Of course, noted Clements, you could show some restraint, buy a smaller house at the 2003 interest rate, and save another $281 per month.  But the real-estate industry isn’t all that interested in helping you downsize and stow the savings in your bank account or 401(k) plan.  The question that the industry urges homebuyers to ask themselves is not, "How much do I want to save on my monthly house payment and utility bills?" but rather, "How much house can I afford?"

The heavy-breathing house market of the past few years added to the pressure by shifting many buyers’ emphasis away from acquiring shelter and toward making an investment.  Within a given neighborhood, houses are sold more or less by the square foot.  So in boom times, the bigger and more expensive the house you buy, the bigger the profit you can make by selling it a few years later.

The steep inflation in house prices that hit some cities during the bubble spurred big-home sales all across the country.  At the height of the boom, the Wall Street Journal cited the example of a San Jose, Calif., couple who bought a 1,250-square-foot house in 2000 for $415,000, sold it in 2004 for $593,000, and bought a house in Bozeman, Mont., for $425,000 – a house nearly three times as large as the one they sold, giving them plenty of cash left over to fill it with furniture and appliances.

Ollie Bohnert, a real-estate agent in St. Louis -- where the housing boom-and-bust has been milder than in many other big cities -- says that she sees houses of all sizes selling well.  From her experience with house shoppers, she told me, "Buying a big house is not a question of need but a question of 'want'."  I asked her if, for a realtor, a big house has a bigger commission payoff per hour of time invested.  She said, "Large houses typically take a little more time, because there are a limited number of buyers.  But it depends.  I've had small houses sell  quick, and I've had large houses sell very quick."

When you can't afford not to tear it down

Square-footage fever emerges in a doubly wasteful form in cities where normal-sized, sound, comfortable houses are being demolished to make way for bigger, more luxurious ones.

In North Carolina’s thriving Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill triangle, demolition permits for single-family homes are currently being issued at the blistering rate of 42 per month.  Speaking to the Raleigh News and Observer in June, the city’s planning director described homeowners’ motivation this way: "They have homes that are built in the '50s and '60s that are somewhat outdated for the lifestyle."

Last year, Les Christie of CNNMoney.com attempted to provide homeowners with an answer to the question, "Is your house a teardown candidate?"  He advised that "even beautiful homes in excellent shape can be torn down," if they have come to be surrounded by larger ones.  But taking a wrecking ball to your home-sweet-home makes the most sense when real-estate prices are running wild.

Christie used the example of "a little bungalow" in suburban Dallas valued at $500,000.  The demolition cost would be comparatively trivial, and it would cost a builder about $600,000 to replace it with a "new, upscale house" of 3,000 square feet. In that situation, "if nearby new homes are valued at $1.2 million or more," economic logic dictates that the owner of a perfectly good house should tear it down and replace it -- or sell it at a big profit to a mansion-building company that will demolish the house to get the lot.

Edmund C. Grant, an attorney in Lexington, Mass., who works in land-use and real estate law, told me that Lexington got an early start on the "mansionization" trend when 1950s- and '60s-era ranch and Cape-Cod style houses began being demolished in the 1990s to make way for houses two-and-a-half to three times their size.  The trend drew renewed energy from the early-2000s boom, when, says Grant, "Property values rose 65 percent in just five years."

A long-time opponent of teardowns, Grant sees the future as unpredictable: "It remains to be seen whether the jumbo loans that support these houses can continue" in light of the current turmoil in the mortgage industry.   But, he laments, "There seems to be a certain inevitability about it.  The trend started in older, more densely populated parts of the country [like Lexington], but it has spread to most markets.  People object to the first teardowns that happen in their neighborhood, but eventually, they seem to get used to it – especially when they see studies showing that teardowns tend to raise all property values in the neighborhood."   

I asked Grant -- who was on his city’s planning commission in the '90s and currently serves on its board of assessors -- if there have been attempts to put legal limits on square footage of houses in Lexington, as has been done in some other liberal cities like Boulder, Colo.  To do so, it turns out, would actually be illegal, because Massachusetts state law forbids local governments to restrict the amount of indoor floor space that a house can have.  "It’s considered a property-rights intrusion," Grant says.  Can the law be overturned?  "I don't know.  The real-estate lobby is pretty strong in this state."

When questions of property rights and house size come up, things seems to move in only one direction, and that's up.  Many neighborhood homeowner associations across the country mandate a minimum size -- often 2,500 to 3,000 square feet – for new houses.  Under their rules, property rights are sacrificed for the sake of perceived property values.

An SUV that runs for 100 years?

The long-term impact of titanic houses parallels that of gas-gulping SUVs and pickup trucks.  Sales of the big vehicles may be ebbing, but the buying binge of the past decade means they’ll still be out there by the millions, belching pollutants, for years to come.  In the same way, even if the mania for big houses fades, Americans will be stuck with heating, cooling and powering the millions of them already littering the landscape – not for years like SUVs, but for decades.

To tackle the problems created by these multistory SUVs-without-wheels in a resource-limited world, Don Fitz, editor of the Green journal Synthesis/Regeneration, has suggested a mathematically obvious but too-often overlooked solution: to have more people living in each house.  For example, he says, extended families could regroup, or all-too-common municipal laws against unrelated people living under the same roof could be eliminated.

In the current climate, though, political pressures are pushing in precisely the opposite direction. In July, the commissioners of Cobb County, Ga., passed an ordinance requiring all houses in the county to have at least 390 square feet of living space per adult.  The new law, widely seen as a weapon to be used against immigrant residents, would prohibit more than four people over 18 from living in a 1,600-square-foot house.

Very few houses now being built are as energy-efficient as they could be, and there is no good excuse for that.  In one recent survey of 33 nonresidential green buildings across the country, their construction costs were found to average only about two percent more than what they would have cost had they been standard buildings (pdf).  Built according to specifications of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system, the green buildings are predicted to provide energy and environmental savings averaging about 75 cents per square foot per year over 20 years.

Yet such prospective savings, if they can also apply to single-family homes, might simply serve the industry as yet another inducement that sells even more square footage -- as in, "Hey, with this bigger LEED house, you'll get a couple more rooms, and it'll be like you're heating and cooling them for free!" 

Clearly, the issue of mansionization will have to be yanked out of the tangle of other housing issues and dealt with as a serious problem in its own right.  The individual question, "How much house can I afford?" will have to give way to the public policy question, "How much house can we afford?"

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See more stories tagged with: green building, mansions

Stan Cox is a plant breeder and writer in Salina, Kan.

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4.5
Posted by: kepstein7777 on Sep 8, 2007 2:37 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The only good news might be that these McMansions are not built to last. It looks like all cardboard, fiberboard, and styrofoam to me.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

» RE: You're right! Posted by: henderson
» RE: You're right! Posted by: solitariodude
Two Words- CARBON TAX
Posted by: NoPCZone on Sep 8, 2007 2:47 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's time- well past time.

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» RE: Two Words- CARBON TAX Posted by: dmmaze6
There's more . . .
Posted by: socialpsych on Sep 8, 2007 3:44 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
McMansions also create more impermeable surfaces, so that rain water runs off and causes erosion, pollution, and flooding rather than being absorbed by the soil and recharging aquifers.

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what happens
Posted by: susanbm on Sep 8, 2007 4:14 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
when the rest of the world holds us accountable for wasteing so much?

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Litchfield County Monsters
Posted by: Sparks56 on Sep 8, 2007 4:24 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Litchfield County, Conn. is second to only Silicon Valley for the number of Macmansions being built. Well-heeled New Yorkers are buying up old family farmsteads and building rediculously huge, rambling monstrosities. I am an electrician who worked on the constuction of a couple of them. (Not any more. These people are a pain in the neck to work for!) These behemoths use more electricity than 10 average suburban houses. Many of these mansions are merely weekend retreats. A Range Rover or a BMW X3, with a Sierra Club bumper sticker, sits in the garage for the few weekends a year when the house is actually occupied.
Concentrated wealth is ruining beautiful small towns everywhere.

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Aesthetics be damned.
Posted by: Urstrly on Sep 8, 2007 6:04 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This summer I was one of thousands of people who visited the newly refurbished home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright in the Pennsylvania woods, Falling Water, and the nearby Kentuck Knob, which he designed later. These homes lift my spirit, and they are relatively small. Wright envisioned well-designed homes for the masses, which he called Usonian, and some of them still stand in places like Westchester County, NY.

I was delighted to learn that nearby school kids visit these places and learn about architecture, because McMansions demonstrate is that Americans know next to nothing about aesthetics. You can get a bachelor's degree and an MBA without any danger of learning about the arts or proportion or the history of architecture. And, especially since the Reagan era, you can live in this country without asking yourself what is enough for you when so much of the world's population is without basic necessities. We have created appetites for needs that will never be filled as the world around us crumbles under our greed.

My suggestion as the descending mortgage crisis drives people from these hideous, overbuilt palaces: Tear them down!

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» RE: Aesthetics be damned. Posted by: edith
» RE: Fallingwater is Unlivable! Posted by: rk_tech68fl
» RE: Aesthetics be damned. Posted by: Mr. Heathen
It's not the wealth, it's the ego
Posted by: ecofriendlynet on Sep 8, 2007 6:13 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It's a shame that the expression of the ego is "more and more", when it should be "less is more".

Live simply so that others may simply live. — Mahatma Gandhi

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A Matter of Taste
Posted by: edith on Sep 8, 2007 6:20 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
"those second homes represent enough surplus living space to accommodate the nation’s homeless population ten times over. "

So toss out the legal inhabitants of the larger homes and fill them with homelees people? Envy runs rampant as does what used to be called, with a proper negative connotation, "being nosy". Not every town has new, large homes. If you don't like them, place yourself elsewhere. I'm sure there are some people who don't like townhouses, which occupy less space per person than McMansions. Do we ban town houses? The market will eventually compel these large homes to be subdivided if the economy collapses. That happened in cities like Boston or New York where in-city mansions were divided into apartments in the 20th century after economic downturns.

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» Robert Fisk? Wow!! Posted by: IPF
» building materials Posted by: bluebirdella
» RE: building materials Posted by: Trazom
9,000 square feet?
Posted by: Logic's Edge on Sep 8, 2007 6:25 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
It boggles the mind. What do you even do with that much space? I suspect there will be rooms the owner never even visits. It would be like living in a vast system of caverns.

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» RE: 9,000 square feet? Posted by: quitecontrary
» RE: 9,000 square feet? Posted by: solitariodude
Having to defend a simple life
Posted by: quitecontrary on Sep 8, 2007 6:29 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My brother lives in a McMansion, which he built after buying a charming cottage just to tear it down, to the dismay of his neighbors. Of course, he started a trend in the neighborhood, and most of the small but comfortable houses (which I'm sure were much better built than his monster) are gone and replaced by boring stucco boxes that lack any character.

What bothers me is that he can be such a snob when visiting me. I live in a very small historic townhouse in the "downtown" of my very rural town. It's just me, the cat, and an extensive book collection, so I'm perfectly content. He has tried numerous times to convince me that because I can afford a monstrous house on my salary, I should buy one. Why? I love that I have only one bathroom to clean, that I don't need central AC because a window unit keeps me plenty cool, and that I don't have all those snazzy appliances to maintain. Most of all, I tell him that the most I've ever paid for my monthly power bill is $100, where he regularly pays $500 a month.

So, who's the real sucker?

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» RE: Having to defend a simple life Posted by: Constitutionalist75
» RE: Having to defend a simple life Posted by: quitecontrary
» RE: Having to defend a simple life Posted by: wonkywriter
Life in Iceland
Posted by: reinaldok on Sep 8, 2007 7:04 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I recently spent some time in Iceland. Reykjavik is considered to be the Green capital of the world. The Icelandic situation should be very carefully studied. Iceland as many do realize is a very wealthy country and life is harsh but good.
Full education and excellent health care are practically free.
Homeless do not exist - Poverty a thing of the past. Cleaniness without a doubt. Crime - negligible. There are 134 in their jails - (Mostly foreigners caught smuggling drugs). Taxes high, but you feel you are getting something for your money. Yes there are quite a few extremely wealthy people. However, there is something they do not have: Huge monstrous houses. They just do not exist. It sure would seem that nobody is attempting to impress the neighbors (or themselves).It is truly frowned upon by all I met for someone to erect one of these incredible mansions. I certainly suspect that if someone were to build a palace of the type mentioned in this article, they would be placed on an ice floe and pushed out to sea.

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» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: mincemeat
» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: Logic's Edge
» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: AlienSlave
» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: Logic's Edge
» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: IPF
» RE: Life in Iceland Posted by: Trazom
At present, there are probably more pressing issues...
Posted by: ABetterFuture on Sep 8, 2007 7:13 AM   
Current rating: 2    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
...than venting re: the size of home your neighbor chooses to occupy. There are scads more useful things about which to wax lovingly anti-choice.

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» Right. Posted by: ABetterFuture
» People will make silly decisions... Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: ight. Posted by: quitecontrary
» Maybe. Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: Maybe. Posted by: Constitutionalist75
» Gentrification AND urban flight? Rly? Posted by: ABetterFuture
» RE: Maybe. Posted by: tkwilson
» You're aware of what percentage... Posted by: ABetterFuture
Victorian Times Revisited?
Posted by: Bab5nutz on Sep 8, 2007 8:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the Victorian era, wealthy, or newly wealthy people would build huge houses to show off their wealth. And more often than not, there were more servants living in and working for the family, than there were family members.
But over time, most of these houses eventually became lodging houses, becoming home to large numbers of people. Or they were broken up into flats and apartments. And gradually, most of these places decayed.
Will McMansions go the same way? In 50 years, perhaps less, will we find three or four families sharing one McMansion?

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» RE: Victorian Times Revisited? Posted by: Logic's Edge
Is 'Green' Really Green?
Posted by: snax on Sep 8, 2007 8:05 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Aside from the obvious shift to excess square footage, part of the issue is that many houses being touted as 'green' don't go far enough. In communities with specific bans on such things as front yard gardens and solar collectors, calling a house green is putting lipstick on a pig. While it is true that vast imrovements to energy consumption and embodied energy can be made in such communities, we are talking about the difference between using say 30% less energy than the comparable standard house down the street, to using 75-90% less, or even putting power back into the electrical grid.

True, Solar Electric arrays are expensive, but even limiting construction to appropriate solar design and using solar water heat makes a much larger dent in efficiency than just dumping a bunch of Energy Star appliances and windows into a house can - which unfortunately is still what many people think is the definition of 'green'.

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Wasteful
Posted by: Schroeder on Sep 8, 2007 8:32 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I work with families who not only cannot afford to buy a house, they can't even afford to rent one, much less afford the cost of day care or anything else and some of them are working two jobs! I find it incredibly unfair and wasteful!.

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» RE: Build UP, Don't Tear Down. Posted by: Schroeder
» RE: Wasteful Posted by: lwbaby
» RE: Wasteful Posted by: Trazom
» kids cost $$$ Posted by: veggiegrrrl
» RE: kids cost $$$ Posted by: Schroeder
Misses the real point - almost all U.S. houses are very wasteful and unhealthy
Posted by: Rune on Sep 8, 2007 8:35 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
What's wrong with America's housing stock from a health and energy perspective is that they were and are being built to such miserable standards that they quickly leak about two-thirds of the heating and cooling energy while letting in moisture that promotes dangerous mold growth and allowing outdoor air pollutants to concentrate in much higher levels indoors. Using off the shelf technology backed by building standards that take advantage of modern day building science, we could build and retrofit houses that use less than half the energy they do today, keep the occupants healthier, and, as a bonus, the houses would be much more comfortable and quiet. The cost of building to such standards would, in most cases, be offset be projected energy costs over the next three decades, leaving the health and comfort benefits as a net gain, to say nothing of reducing the impetus for abominable wars.

Yes, gigantic houses would still be more wasteful than compact versions, but we could do so much more to make ourselves healthier and wiser in terms of how we use and reduce our dangerous energy consumption by building and retrofitting houses built on an integrated systems model that reflects what modern building science has taught us that it is really just a distraction and waste of time and energy to point fingers at McMansions that are falling out of favor and out of reach for other reasons without any changes in policies.

Those who are interested in real solutions to wasteful, sick buildings can check out this report and poke around some of the links on the sites below as a start:

Home Performance with Energy Star

Energy Efficient Homes

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Yes, Americans have pushed the envelope.
Posted by: Sojourner on Sep 8, 2007 8:49 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Is it yet time for us to suffer the consequences of an unregulated life? If not yet, we all know that time will eventually get here.

Big homes have been a good investment for a long time now. That is the pattern that Bush is trying to maintain by guaranteeing the indefinite future for the dominance of Big Energy.

It cannot last. But all that matters is, when will it give way to reality? The sooner the better, since our capacity for recovery from our excesses diminishes daily. How much of a breakdown will it take?

I have based my choices on the expectation it will happen in my lifetime. I'd rather not be around when it happens--and then again, I do enjoy saying "I told you so."

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Smaller is better
Posted by: Sunfell on Sep 8, 2007 9:06 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I live in a 950SF duplex apartment. It's small, but there are lots of advantages to living in a small place, like less house to keep clean, smaller heating and cooling bills, and a smaller 'footprint' on the planet.

When I eventually buy a house, I plan to get or build a 1500 SF 'palace'. I'll call it a 'micro-mansion', and will equip it with all the sustainable stuff I can get my mitts on. Solar Panels. Water cachement. No lawn. It'll be high quality and low impact. And not so big.

Heck, I might even start a new tear-down-sizing trend!

One can dream...

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» RE: Smaller is better Posted by: mincemeat
» RE: Smaller is better Posted by: constantreader
New Urbanism movement
Posted by: oobi on Sep 8, 2007 9:41 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you ever wondered why many of us prefer the charm of small cottages, old town neighborhoods and the like, you owe it to yourself to see this:Andres Duany 1991
It's like a complete college course in urban design in less than 90 minutes

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» RE: New Urbanism movement Posted by: Ahimsa
It ain't gonna work
Posted by: fearn on Sep 8, 2007 9:42 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I lived in China at one time and always wondered how a minuscule part of the population could whiz by in their Rolls when obviously impoverished people looked for pieces of coal on the side of the road. Inequality and in particular massive inequality has been the greatest scourge since day one. It is un-American but Bush Jr. as well as many Americans don't seem to understand that. It has never worked anywhere else and it ain't gonna work in the US of A either.

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Look at who lives in these particle-board palaces
Posted by: ReallyBearish on Sep 8, 2007 10:57 AM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the old days, mansions were most often build by folks who made things, and they put their names on the products they made. The particle-board palaces are mostly being built by hedge fund managers and their ilk who make nothing. They make money thru "arbs" and other distortions in the economy produced by Fed and government policy.

Problem is, these people and their wealth are already evaporating. One of the results of the 1930s depression was to reduce wealth disparity-- mostly by sending the instant millionaires of the 1920s into oblivion. In the 1950s I happened to live in a house built by one of those millionaires that my family bought for much less than it had cost to build in the 1920s.

Look for the McMansions to become boarding houses or apartments in the future. A lot of them will be torn down. End of an era periods are not pretty.

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The Edwards' behemoth
Posted by: JoAnne on Sep 8, 2007 12:00 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
And that's what bother's me about John Edwards' and partner. What kind of ego would drive two people with two kids to build a 28,000 square foot behemoth. To see this it in wide angle, Google "John Edwards house". I think it's the first listing.

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» The Poverty Solver Posted by: edith
» RE: The Edwards' behemoth Posted by: Axiom69
» RE: The Edwards' behemoth Posted by: wonkywriter
» RE: The Edwards' behemoth Posted by: JPHickey
Dining with the rich
Posted by: mincemeat on Sep 8, 2007 12:36 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I once knew someone who worked at an upscale (jacket and tie required - and valet parking) restaurant. It was not uncommon for this person to sneeze into the food. As grotesque as it sounds, I understand their frustration in dealing with the picky snobs who came in and made all kinds of demands. Sometimes the food was too hot and the rich snob couldn't wait 5 minutes for it to cool down, so my friend had to go put ice cubes on it for a few minutes. Other times someone may complain that their food was bland and they would require a new plate of something entirely different - basically, they wanted to sample the different menu items at the restaurant's expense.

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» RE: what if we insulted the rich Posted by: jeffersonian
Turn them into apartments
Posted by: ggmurray on Sep 8, 2007 1:49 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In my town, mini-mansions have sprung up everywhere. It's like seeing the last hurrah of the dinosaurs. No one can afford to heat them, cool them, and no one is home - the owners are all off working to pay for them. But I can imagine a use for them - if turned into condos, in-law apartments, and apartments. After all, everyone needs someplace to live, and it doesn't have to be a mansion.

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» RE: Turn them into apartments Posted by: Schroeder
You mean size does matter?
Posted by: ldasteelworker on Sep 8, 2007 2:55 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You mean size does matter? Not as much as how well you're built!

Using 1983 era technology (today you can do even better), Amory and Hunter Lovins' 4,000-square-foot home (at an altitude of 7,100 feet in the Rocky Mountains where it gets -40 degrees Fahrenheit) has no conventional central heating and is constructed with R-60 ceiling insulation, R-40 walls, earth berming, R-5.3 windows, a solar greenhouse, and air ventilation of less than 0.2 changes per hour using an air-to-air heat exchanger. The super insulated structure is more than 130% passive solar, meaning that their home is a net energy producer...

The multipurpose dwelling has four areas: offices for the Rocky Mountain Institute ( www.rmi.org ), a greenhouse, a common eating/living area, and the Lovins' private area. Excluding the power used by the institute's office equipment, the home uses electricity at a rate of about the equivalent to one 100-watt light bulb! 95% of the lighting and all the heating and cooling is provided by solar.

Excess heat is vented, total electrical requirements are 1/5 of a watt per square foot per month (excess electricity generated on-site, six fold over usage, is sold back to the local utility's grid) and conserving fixtures are used that cut water use in half as well...

The technologically advanced, attractive, multifunctional, and comfortable building cost (including land and financing) about $625,000 ($155 per square foot) which is cheap considering conventional buildings' construction and maintenance costs. And the extra energy efficiency investments in the home repaid their costs in about 10 months.

In another example: a prototype 1,656 square foot tract home built for Pacific Gas and Electric and designed by Davis Energy Group (in consultation with Lovins) in Davis, California (where temperatures go as high as 113 degrees Fahrenheit) does not use any conventional heat or air conditioning. Lovins says that if the methods used in the house were introduced on a mass scale, construction costs would be $1800 cheaper, and maintenance costs would be cut by $1600 per year as compared to conventional construction.

See Also:

'Household Energy Efficiency - Home Energy Briefs' - Rocky Mountain Institute
( http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid119.php )

'Buildings & Land' - Rocky Mountain Institute
( http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid174.php )

Energy: 'More Profit with Less Carbon' - Armory B. Lovins, Scientific American, September 2005, pg 74-82. ( http://www.sciam.com/media/pdf/Lovinsforweb.pdf )

'Armory Lovins: Reinventing Human Enterprise of Sustainability' - Shel Horowitz
( http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/amorylovins.shtml )

'Exporting Energy in the Rockies' - Mother Earth News, July/August 1984.
( http://www.motherearthnews.com )

'Energy Efficient Homes' - Mother Earth News
( http://www.energyefficienthomearticles.com/ )
1,071 articles in a Energy Efficient Home Articles' database from 903 authors providing information about energy efficient homes.

'Audubon House: Building the Environmentally Responsible, Energy-Efficient Office' - National Audubon Society and Croxton Collaborative ( http://www.wiley.com )

"Audubon House illustrates a shining example of the future of architecture: a future where energy efficiency and the preservation of natural, historic, and human resources are the key to creating spaces that are cost-effective, healthy, beautiful, and magical." —Amory B. Lovins.

'Residential Buildings: Technologies, Design, and Performance Analysis' - European Council for an Energy Efficient Economy ( http://www.eceee.org )

Pacific Gas & Electric Advanced Customer Technology test for maximum Efficiency
( http://www.pge.com )

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» RE: You mean size does matter? Posted by: solitariodude
» RE: You mean size does matter? Posted by: ldasteelworker
» RE: You mean size does matter? Posted by: solitariodude
» RE: You mean size does matter? Posted by: ldasteelworker
If you want to be free start with an off grid home
Posted by: Missing Piece on Sep 8, 2007 3:00 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
If you research efficient homes you will quickly relize there is only one, a earth home. It does not have to be airconditioned and needs little heat. Google, "earth homes" and you will see that they are the only way we should be biulding homes today.

I plan on building one with solar and wind so I can ulitmatly go off grid. Once electric cars come out and we have large storage capacity for the wind and solar then I think it is possible to say good bye to oil, (well atleast for transportation).

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Americans are too Wealthy
Posted by: dayahka on Sep 8, 2007 3:19 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This article might be timely and topical if and when Americans ever get around to thinking about sustainability. However, at this point in time that is not an issue. If someone has enough money, what are they going to spend it on? Why not a big house, a big car, a big everything--or, in the case of the obese, more of everything every time all the time. If you are rich, particularly if your wealth comes from other people's money (like China) and is supported by an irresponsible Federal Bank and an insane Capitalist system, and your government is nothing but a corporate fascism, what else do you do with your money--except spend it?

The unfortunate side of the current economic system is that it has no sense of responsibility to the future, to others, to the environment, or even to life itself. This narcissistic pathology may (or may not) change in the future in response to numerous problems that may arise (lack of oil, war, climate change, etc.), but without a change in fundamental values, the future will be just more of the same. Sustainability is not on people's minds and never will be short of some calamity that forces the issue.

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» RE: Americans are too Wealthy Posted by: Logic's Edge
Good article! Here are some of the driving forces behind this trend.
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Sep 8, 2007 3:37 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
First, I suggest taking at trip down to your local city and county offices and checking out who is financing the elections of city councilmembers and county supervisors - the primary people who set building rules across the USA.

You'll find developers and real estate agents at the top of the list, or very close - guaranteed.

Developers and real estate agents make money by buying property and reselling it at higher value - and value is usually based on location and square footage. Only a tiny handful of homeowners build their own houses.

So, tearing down an old house and throwing up a new one made of formaldehyde glued fiber- and particle-board is not expensive (especially with cheap immigrant labor and cheaper materials). Developers always try and maximize square footage so they can sell the house for more.

Energy efficiency, good insulation, durable construction - to a developer, these are additional costs that subtract from their profit margins. Thus, any time a county or city or a state tries to alter building codes in favor of energy efficient housing, a whole host of politically connected developers, real estate agents and electric utilities come charging in to make sure that standards are not changed.

Why do the electric utilities and the natural gas utilities oppose energy efficiency? Simple - it reduces demand. Electric and gas rates are complex things, but there's base;line demand at a low rate, and past that energy consumers pay a lot more per BTU or kWH.

In the summer, when all the air conditioners turn on, electric utilities just rake in the cash - because THEIR costs don't go up as much (unless you've got Enron and Reliant and Duke gaming the system, as happened in California in 2000-2001). Similarly, prices for heating oil and natural gas climb sharply in the winter - although freak winter warm spells brought on by global warming have been messing with prices for the past few years - although summer heat waves brought on by global warming mean the electric demand from coal fired power plants skyrockets in the summer.

This is also why the utilites are fighting hard behind the scenes to prevent solar water heating systems from qualifying for tax rebates here in California.

If you want a green house, you want a small, well insulated house that stays warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Don't expect a profit-minded developer to build one for you - you'll have to be closely involved with every step of the process to get what you want.

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McMansion
Posted by: solitariodude on Sep 8, 2007 4:20 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I find the term "McMansion" to be appropriate considering that it is an obvious take on "McDonalds", of which we all know to be a corporation with the one goal of making as much money as possible from an otherwise gullible public. "Supersize Me" has never hit home (no pun intended) more so than in this ludicrous, overpriced housing market in which the consumer actually enjoys over-paying for a sub-standard product that leaves them with indigestion long after the initial satisfaction has departed.

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McMansion Owner Seeks Utility Discount!
Posted by: CV on Sep 8, 2007 4:59 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I found this one hard to believe - but since this task was assigned to me, well . . .

I was working for a real estate attorney who represented a "magnate" living in a house that was at least 6,000 square feet. One fine day the attorney called me into his office and said that this particular client was paying over $2,000 a month in utility bills and my job was to see if (I swear this is true) the utility company would give him some sort of bulk DISCOUNT for his usage. The look of incredulity on my face could not have been missed - followed by "you're kidding me, right"? "No," the attorney said - "go find out."

I had a terrific laugh with the nice woman at Southern California Edison . . . she completely understood that I had no choice but to ask the question . . and provided the website where I could document that the utility company only provided discounts to the needy and the elderly. The client and the attorney were clearly unhappy with the result. The attorney was even less pleased when I suggested that perhaps the client could "stop heating his swimming pool" or "buy a smaller house." My assignment to that attorney lasted a mere 6 months.

As for me, I sold my condo in LA at the top of the market last year and rented an apartment with no air conditioning. Yes, there have been a couple of uncomfortable weeks this summer, but even with fans running all day in three rooms, my electric bill was $26.00 last month. And I bought a Prius that costs me about $25 every 2 weeks to fill up even at current gas prices.

He might own a mega-million dollar company, but that doesn't mean he ain't stupid!

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Good start on a complex topic
Posted by: raywigton on Sep 8, 2007 5:35 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I'm kind of embarrassed because I know that I'm guilty. When we moved in, my son asked me what country had the most castles? I told him that I didn't know but probably France, England or Germany. He said "wrong! The United States does." He's probably right; even if we don't consider these houses to be castles; they are certainly bigger than European castles. When we bought the house, I had a mother in law and teenage children everywhere. I felt that we needed the space. The interest rates were half of what we were paying and we got in when the rates were at there absolute lowest. We will shortly become empty nesters and the mother in law has passed away. We will have four empty bedrooms that are bigger than the houses in many countries. It's already so ridiculous that my wife and I talk on cell phones from within the house. But there are other things that you should consider before condemning me.

Our electric and gas bills are smaller for this house than they were for the previous house that we lived in and it wasn’t half the size. The insulation and modern technology products make a world of difference. The “on demand” type of hot water heater saves a lot of energy. We only use hot water in the morning and evening so why heat it all day when nobody is home and all night while we sleep. Nobody builds “empty nester” houses. Try to find a small house in a nice neighborhood. We would move into one if it existed in our community. My street is filled with empty nesters, some were that way when they moved in but most have simply become that way over the last six years.

The article accuses real estate agents of contributing to the problem but I disagree. Asking you how much house you can afford doesn’t force people to buy bigger houses. It only helps the agent find what you need and can afford. Real estate agents have no say in what is built or what is zoned by the city. The problem is in the covenants that go with the property. They require that every house in a neighborhood be a minimum square footage. They often prohibit solar panels and other green approaches to construction too. Our urban flight has a lot to do with it too. We consider our suburban schools to be better and our neighborhoods to be “safer.” All that is available in our “nicer school districts” and “safer neighborhoods” are large houses with big property taxes to pay the cost of keeping it that way.

The design of the roof isn’t always a consideration beyond the extra timber used in construction. The insulation on my neighborhoods typically one story houses is at the ceiling and as such the roofline is just design. To allow ourselves to live a greener life style and save our planet from global warming; we have to change a lot of our laws and property rules. We need articles like this one to raise our collective consciousness and hopefully reach beyond the “progressive community.“ We really can’t change these things without teaching repugnantcans to be environmentalist too. Urban planning and proper city management is the key. Let’s create green zones where all of the houses are allowed to comply with green standards and where size isn’t a restriction. Let’s change our attitudes about protecting our property values.

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» RE: Good start on a complex topic Posted by: Mr. Heathen
not for long
Posted by: thecynic on Sep 8, 2007 7:03 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In the mortgage payments don't get them, I expect the rising energy costs and property taxes and coming depression will. One way or the other they will wind up for the most parts as empty hulks. I do believe there are about 2 million sitting empty as I write this. Darn. Breaks my heart.

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» RE: not for long Posted by: JPHickey
hang about - isn't this the American dream
Posted by: unity1 on Sep 8, 2007 7:43 PM   
Current rating: 3    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
the American dream was - if not to be a millionaire - than at least live like one and what better way to think you are living that dream than to build a mansion - the dream illusionary as it is - is no less real bought about by easy credit - are you ready to reap your illusions

America you are the nation of crass excess and it shows vividly in contrast to the lives of Iraqis who are being slaughtered in your names whose homes are being bombed as we speak - contrasts are being made all over the world and this just feeds the growing comprehension that Americans are to caught up in their own grand illusions to care what is being done to others

Green - what a whitewashing - to be expected by a nation of idol worshipers

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Why worry about "green" when you got the housing bubble that's even worse in CA.
Posted by: maxpayne on Sep 9, 2007 7:35 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Look anyone with a bit of sense knew the housing boom based on terrible lending practices was going to blow up big time and take a lot of fools with it. My cousin who lives in CA saw it coming over a year ago and so did a lot of other people who saw how the whole thing was financed. Not to mention that nothing goes up forever. My cousin living near the center of the coming house implosion I think its a good thing. Its going to flush out a lot of people who had no business in a house and the Trump wannabes as well. Prices need to come back down dramatically. There is no reason why a 50 year old shack in North Hollywood, CA should go a half-million or a adobe house in the Mojave desert for $250,000. The no money down mortgages were a disaster for a lot of suburbs. It allowed con-artits, scum bags, illegals, gang bangers and all sorts of low lifes to get into a house. What a lot of these people did was to make a few payments then live in the house and thrash it until they were evicted. Basically 6-9 months free rent. And made life hell on the people who actually are decent and house proud.

By the way, and if you're really concerned about green houses, try HEMP HOMES for a change ! Most of the stuff that most homes are made of are manufactured with PETROLEUM !

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Let's figure out how to fix it
Posted by: BobCP on Sep 9, 2007 10:05 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Until it becomes socially unacceptable to have much more housing than you need, we should think about some immediate disincentives:

No income tax interest deduction over ~$100,000. This alone would probably prevent a significant percentage of new McMansions and might have prevented some of the current credit meltdown.

Local property taxes based on property worth, square footage and energy consumption. This would lessen the burden on the most responsible.

Any other ideas?

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» OK point taken Posted by: IPF
All I see is jealousy
Posted by: popsicle67 on Sep 9, 2007 10:17 AM   
Current rating: 1    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Many of the green meanies I know are residing in the exact housing you losers decry. One(my ex-mother-in-law) has the balls to donate earth first and have friends in the ELF, she even has a Honda Hybrid. She and her husband just finished
a 3500 square foot home that is one level with a huge garage
underneath and even delayed buying a newer more efficient car to pay for it. With the new digs you would think they would find a way to use their former, more modest digs to relieve the homeless situation in their community, but no, they just store junk they won't put in the new house there.
In short, your own worst enemy is the phalanx of "I got mine,
now lets shut out the rest of the unwashed" weekend environmentalists that are so prevalent today.
And by the way, It's nunya damn bidness how big the other guys house is.

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» RE: All I see is jealousy Posted by: Logic's Edge
» RE: All I see is jealousy Posted by: rk_tech68fl
» RE: What I see is myopia Posted by: Constitutionalist75
» RE: What I see is myopia Posted by: goeswithness
Bigger "fishbowls"?
Posted by: BettynotWilma on Sep 9, 2007 10:50 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
In addition to the energy inefficiency of gargantuan abodes...it also follows that the larger the habitat..the larger the inhabitants. Think BIG, grow BIG ! Own a BIG house and a BIG car. Seems that folks equate corpulence with opulence.

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Here we go with the "Edwards isn't poor so he can't raise issues of poverty" meme...
Posted by: superdan on Sep 9, 2007 9:56 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Give it a rest.

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It's Not Just in the States Either, That They Are Building These Huge Houses
Posted by: Bab5nutz on Sep 10, 2007 7:05 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I was walking past a real estate agent today, and out of curiousity, stopped to have a look. One of the houses they were advertising had five double bedrooms, three bathrooms, and three living rooms! What does anyone need with three living rooms?

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» Right; just Googled the Song Posted by: Bab5nutz
photovoltaic paint... roof shingles...
Posted by: BlueBerry PickN on Sep 10, 2007 7:45 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
are getting *cheaper & cheaper*
home digital green energy maintenance systems... easier & easier to use...
but McMansion Morons would rather install a big-ass home theatre system...

gotta wonder what is wrong with the housing development & real estate renovations culture that independent, distributed green energy acquisition is never on the menu.

why?
North AmeriKans would rather spend their free time paying monthly utility bills than the time it would take to figure out how to live independently & contribute to a solution
&
because the NATURAL GAS industry is cheek & jowl with the real estate developers & 'home reno' infotainment industry.

... & that is a culture gap that must be addressed before WE can get anywhere.



BlueBerry Pick'n
can be found @
ThisCanadian
"Silent Freedom is Freedom Silenced"

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» The Trees Posted by: IPF
No future beyond them
Posted by: makeadifference on Sep 10, 2007 9:39 AM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Many of these monster homes are being built in coastal regions. Apparently the buyers are not concerned about rising sea levels... or they have so much money they rationalize their home as a future reef. These home buyers do not connect themselves to anything larger than themselves. After they die, life doesn't need to go on... so heck with the planet, the future and future generations.

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» RE: No future beyond them Posted by: Trazom
American obesity continues....
Posted by: mercury613 on Sep 10, 2007 12:52 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Very few people actually need that much space, just like very few people actually need an SUV. We’ve just been brainwashed into thinking we do for status reasons.

We Americans continue to consume without any regard for the consequences. No wonder we’re the fattest nation in the world.

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More of the Same Urbanism
Posted by: Ahimsa on Sep 10, 2007 1:49 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The New Urbanism movement will not make any difference because its allegations are merely rhetorical.
The "alternative" they propose is based on the same economic monocultures and serves the same groups of interest as usual: big development.
New urbanist towns plant their catalog of town forms and architectural styles, with crass disregard of any local idiosyncrasies. It brings environments as alien as the competition. Are they a notch better? Perhaps. But the large undoings are masked by the creation of a false conscience about a the actual reaches of a superficial change.
It is just a matter of form. Mere marketing for the affluent pseudo-green trendy yuppie.
I love to think of it as another part of the Neocon plot... (hehe)

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Why is it...
Posted by: goeswithness on Sep 10, 2007 2:17 PM   
Current rating: 4    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
That money so rarely seems to come with sense?

Rarely have I met a well to do person that I thought was any more intelligent, harder working, or deserving than an ordinary person. This sort of thing, I fear, supports my observation.

I wonder if it's something genetic - some people are born with a strong urge for domination and taking all they can, so they push and push and push to take and climb. It sure doesn't happen because of virtue, or, as I say, smarts.

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places where they cut down the trees and name the streets after them
Posted by: 741963 on Sep 10, 2007 6:56 PM   
Current rating: 5    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Near my home neighborhood, there is a large community of McMansions ironically named "TALL GRASS". In high school kids used to graffiti the ugly sign to read "ALL ASS".

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Building around community space
Posted by: Camilla Cracchiolo on Sep 10, 2007 11:00 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I live with husband and cat in an 800 sq ft bungalow courtyard in Los Angeles. Been here for 30 years. I definitely feel it's too small...I want a home office/library for my books. Most of my neighbors are Central American or Mexican immigrants and are living 4-10 to each apartment, so I shouldn't complain, but I still feel cramped.

But one thing I love about it is that it is built so that each little apartment is like a little house and each one faces inside the courtyard. Which means we interact constantly with our neighbors. Not only do I know their families, but people who moved out still visit. We feel safe here, even though the neighborhood is dangerous because we all know who belongs here, who doesn't and look out for each other.

Someday I want to move to a condo but I want it to be like this one. I feel so sorry for people who live in condos that are crammed onto the land with no green space and who have no idea who their neighbors are. Or in suburbs where they wall themselves away from everyone else. Here we often have parties in the courtyard, because we don't have enough space inside the apartments to have dinner parties.

Modern living is so lonely.

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Our experience, too
Posted by: loril on Sep 11, 2007 6:05 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Full disclosure: we could NEVER afford a "McMansion'...so all the right wing materialists will just sneer that I have "house envy". However, my husband and I often say that, if money was no object, we would still choose an older home (preferably one built in the 1920s or earlier.)

We have a vintage WWI era home that is a definite "fixer upper" -- but much of the work is basically cosmetic and doing some updating in regards to wiring. My husband is a talented handyman and does 90% of the work himself. It is a work in progress, lots of work, and we will never have a "showplace home". But we have a mortgage well under $1000/month, live on a fabulous street and enjoy the quality and character of our modest soon-to-be-century home.

My husband did some security installation work during college and used to tell some scary stories about the crap quality of building for these McMansions. The people in them are paying for a fancy address, lots of pressboard and plastic and wasted space (as in the ridiculous "great room" craze of a decade or so ago). These homes will not wear well, as they are constructed so shoddily...and all that white plastic they use in closets, baseboards, kitchen fixtures, etc will discolor and look awful in 10 years.

But I suppose most of the buyers never think "long term". In 10 years they dream about upgrading to an even larger status symbol...er, I mean "home".

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American Values
Posted by: Jeff Hoffman on Sep 11, 2007 3:27 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
This continuing trend is exactly what one would expect in a nation with the most materialistic, selfish, and greedy people. This is obviously a generalization, but it accurately generally describes the population of the U.S. This country needs a major spiritual, mental, and emotional evolution and needs it immediately.

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» RE: American Values Posted by: Orientalist
Dream Home
Posted by: Sum Won on Sep 13, 2007 2:07 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
As the Wall Street Journal reported recently, "Major builders and top architects are walling people off. They're touting one-person 'Internet alcoves,' locked-door 'away rooms,' and his-and-her offices on opposite ends of the house. The new floor plans offer so much seclusion, they're 'good for the dysfunctional family,' says Gopal Ahluwahlia, director of research for the National Association of Home Builders."

At the building industry's annual Las Vegas trade show, the "showcase 'Ultimate Family Home' hardly had a family room," noted the Journal. Instead, the boy's personal playroom had its own 42-inch plasma TV, and the girl's bedroom had a secret mirrored door leading to a "hideaway karaoke room." "We call this the ultimate home for families who don't want anything to do with one another," said Mike McGee, chief executive of Pardee Homes of Los Angeles, builder of the model.

Parenting skills now require that we punish our children by not allowing them to go their room.

But why is "Little house on the prairie" so popular on their jumbotron plasma screen? Does it portray the American story? "Of a life rich in family, rich in connection to the natural world, rich in adventure -- but materially deprived. That one dress, that same bland dinner... a stick of candy, and the awful deliberation about whether to stretch it out with tiny licks or devour it in an orgy of happy greed."

Then again " the show that changed television more than any other in the past decade was Survivor, where the goal is to end up alone on the island, to manipulate and scheme until everyone is banished and leaves you by yourself with your money."

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