Episode 11 of Season 88 of House Hunters opens with this claim from a Jacksonville, Florida couple:

We have a very American problem. We have too much stuff. And we’re going to do the very American solution. Instead of getting rid of some of our stuff, we’re going to just get a bigger house.

This is indeed a very American problem. I’m not sure whether this couple should be applauded for recognizing the issue at hand (how many Americans really recognize they have lots of stuff?) or we should sadly shake our heads at their decision of how to move on. We have a consumer driven economy where Americans own enough stuff to fill lots of self-storage facilities. And the size of new homes have risen over 50% in the last four decades, even as household sizes have decreased. Perhaps the interest in McMansions isn’t about having private space or impressing the neighbors or showing off the owner’s status; perhaps they are about having so many square feet of space that the owner can keep consuming.

As an aside, it might be fascinating to see how many McMansion owners rent self-storage units…