Here is a (fanciful) way to truly downsize and still acquire a McMansion:

Matt Damon stars as Paul Safranek, an overstretched man in an overstretched world, working as an occupational therapist down at Omaha Steaks and still living in the house where he was born. Paul hungers for a fresh start and finds it courtesy of the newfangled technique of “cellular miniaturisation”, which promptly shrinks the recipient to a height of five inches. This technique has apparently been pioneered by scientists out in Norway, although one might just as easily claim that Payne has been doing it for years. Films like Election, Sideways and Nebraska, for instance, spotlighted a burgeoning crisis in American masculinity, focusing on men who fear that they’re seen as small by the world. With the excellent Downsizing, Payne has simply gone that extra mile.

The benefits for Paul are clear from the outset. As a little man, he costs less and consumes less. His assets of $152,000 convert to a whopping $12m in the bonsai community of Leisureland Estates, which means that he can now afford a McMansion or a luxury bachelor pad, like one of those cash-poor Londoners who sells their Hackney flat and then buys up half of Rotherham. A flick of the switch and the process is complete. Afterwards the nurses return to theatre and lift the clients from their beds aboard small steel spatulas…

The point, of course, is that glass-domed Leisureland is merely America in microcosm, with all the same corruption and wealth-disparity, loneliness and strife. Neither does it exist in splendid isolation. If the outside world starts to burn, then Leisureland is all-but guaranteed to go down in flames too.

It sounds like the McMansion critics win in the end in this fantasy land.

Seriously though, wouldn’t many Americans want to say they had both downsized as well as acquired a sizable and well-appointed house? Here is how this could happen:

1. Given the size of many new houses in recent years, people could downsize – lose 1,000+ square feet – and still have really large houses.
2. Downsizing does not necessarily mean giving up amenities. What if someone gives up a large home for a smaller home but it has all the latest features or is located in the trendy neighborhood? Downsizing can be associated with trying to live a simpler life but this could be hard for many.

We’ll have to wait and see what those with the potential to downsize – largely Baby Boomers – actually do.