A Washington Post review of a new book on social class suggests McMansions help illustrate class differences:

Its influence begins before birth and holds sway beyond the grave. It can determine who goes to prison and who goes to the Ivy League, who drinks bottled prestige water and who swigs from a foul tap, who rents rooms and who rattles around in a McMansion…

Fraser uses iconic events, documents and images from American history as his raw material for six essays on why class matters. The reality of class — not just patterns of consumption and markers of wealth and privilege, but raw power — had largely been expunged from our national vocabulary by political elites pushing the American Dream, he argues. But the dirty secret of class emerged a decade or so ago in the unequal wreckage of the global financial meltdown, he contends.

Throughout the use of the word McMansion from the late 1990s to today, it has often been used in this way: to symbolize the wealthy in America who can purchase and live in large new homes. At the same time, it is a little less clear what strata of Americans can live in McMansions. Is this the top 20%? The 1%? The “Dream Hoarders“? This depends somewhat on the metropolitan region as McMansions can differ significantly in size and price but I would guess McMansions are for those in the top 10-30% of American earners. Those who earn less cannot live in such a home while those above that level would not not want to be associated with McMansions and/or have enough resources to access even better housing.

At a broader level, where one can live is an excellent marker of social class: it hints at the wealth the homeowner has (it takes a certain level of wealth to purchase any home), the neighborhood or community in which the home is in hints at relative status, and the size and features of the housing is often taken to say much about the resident. A McMansion owner has a certain lifestyle and status.