A letter to the editor in California includes McMansions on a list of items that need attention in order to fight climate change:

Wildfires are increasing but McMansion developments are underway in brushland.

McMansions have long been connected to environmental concerns. This includes their presence within sprawling suburbs and neighborhoods where driving is necessary and a lot of land is used. It includes the materials required for each home and yard. It includes the use of resources to heat and light such homes.

The concern expressed above is more specific. McMansions are linked to wildfires and brushland. This suggests these homes are being built in places where they should not be built or in places that are vulnerable to wildfires. If McMansions were not in these locations, wildfires would affect fewer people.

I wonder, however, if McMansion is shorthand here for any larger single-family home. Do expanding metropolitan regions in California and other states have climate implications? When people move to what used to be small towns surrounded by more open land or continue to move out into dry suburban fringes, isn’t this more problematic than large McMansions with bad architecture?