Category Archives: McMansions

McMansions and McVulnerabilities

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The Mc- prefix continues to live on in analysis of American life. As a recent example, here is a description of “McVulnerability” found in social media videos of crying and sadness:

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The weepy confessions are, ostensibly, gestures toward intimacy. They’re meant to inspire empathy, to reassure viewers that influencers are just like them. But in fact, they’re exercises in what I’ve come to call “McVulnerability,” a synthetic version of vulnerability akin to fast food: mass-produced, easily accessible, sometimes tasty, but lacking in sustenance. True vulnerability can foster emotional closeness. McVulnerability offers only an illusion of it. And just as choosing fast food in favor of more nutritious options can, over time, result in harmful outcomes, consuming “fast vulnerability” instead of engaging in bona fide human interaction can send people down an emotionally unhealthy path…

McVulnerability is perhaps an inevitable outcome of what the sociologist Eva Illouz identifies as a modern-day landscape of “emotional capitalism.” “Never has the private self been so publicly performed and harnessed to the discourses and values of the economic and political spheres,” Illouz writes in her book Cold Intimacies. Emotional capitalism has “realigned emotional cultures, making the economic self emotional and emotions more closely harnessed to instrumental action.” That is, not only does emotionality sell goods, but emotions themselves have also become commodities…

McVulnerability, from whichever angle you look at it, is the opposite of generous. It doesn’t require risk. It may pretend to give, but ultimately, it takes. And it leaves most of its consumers hungry for what they’re craving: human connection—the real thing.

The “Mc-” prefix makes sense given the popularity of McDonald’s. The way the term is deployed above seems similar to how the term McMansion has been used for several decades. McVulnerability is a pale substitute for true vulnerability. It is vulnerability in a popular and commodified form.

But can the term stick? It may depend on the popularity of such viral videos. Do they have staying power or will they be gone to be replaced by other trending videos? Will this pattern last for years? Or there might be other terms that describe these videos. Or the critique may not stick – what if most watchers see the emotional expressions as real and valuable? If such expressions become the new normal, perhaps McVulnerability is here to stay.

We’ll have to wait and see. McDonald’s will go on and plenty of other mass produced products and experiences will come along. Which ones will live on in “Mc-” infamy?

The gang nail plate and McMansions

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I have seen gang nail plates before but did not know their name nor consider their possible contribution to the rise of McMansions:

The more that I think about it, the more that I come to believe that this invention is responsible for the suburbs as we know it. This unassuming little piece of metal, it’s called a gang nail plate or a truss plate, and its job is to affix pieces of wood together at their joints.

What’s really unique about it though is that it can securely connect wood members positioned at almost any angle. With the aid of these plates houses made of standard 2×4 studs can have open floor plans, cathedral ceilings, and complicated roof shapes all constructed with ease. You might recognize all those three traits as the common features of modern suburban homes, especially the so-called McMansions. Yeah, these things make McMansions possible.

One feature of many McMansions is a roof line with numerous gables. The front may have multiple gables popping up above windows. Or there might be gables pointed different directions. The roof line might mix several architectural styles. These options give McMansions a distinct profile, one that critics often note is odd or garish.

The argument of this video is that this is made possible by the gang nail plate. Without it, the roof is more expensive and not as strong. The big spaces that Americans expect in their single-family homes are more difficult to construct.

This reminds me of the importance of other construction techniques that enabled suburban housing. Balloon framing. The systems developed in mass suburbs, such as Levittown, to build homes in stages and with a set number of floor plans.

Improving a home’s interior design so it does not feel like a McMansion

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Is a house a McMansion regardless of what it has inside? One recent discussion of interior design hints that it depends on what the inside looks like:

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Everyone loves a good feature in a house. Wainscotting adds texture to a boring room, stone on a fireplace makes a living room cozier, and a simple ceiling beam can elevate an entire room. These architectural flairs make a house feel more memorable. Without them, a space can feel like a developer rather than an architect created the design, building something of a McMansion. But while it’s important to add thoughtful features, HGTV’s Drew Scott points out that there can be too much of a good thing. While one of those accents can help make a house feel special, muddling them all together can make everything too busy.

Often, the features of McMansions are visible from the outside: a large size, a mish-mash of architectural styles, and/or a location in a suburban subdivision of similar mass-produced homes.

But could a McMansion be redeemed if the inside does not look like a McMansion? Or could a home be a McMansion if the outside does not look like it but the interior has McMansion features? Imagine a 2×2 table:

McMansion interiorNot McMansion interior
McMansion exterior
Not McMansion exterior

The “typical” McMansion is in the top left cell: the outside and inside shows McMansion traits. The mixed categories are what is at stake here with the emphasis on interior spaces. Have the right design element inside and it could push a home out of the McMansion category.

I am not sure how this works. Who gets to render the ultimate McMansion judgment? Since McMansion is a negative term, does any shade of McMansion-ness mean the home is a McMansion?

Where the houses are large and household size is declining, Australia edition

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A recent report suggests Australia has the biggest houses in the world even though the number of people living in their homes is declining:

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The research found two thirds of homeowners across the nation live in a house with an average size of 214 sqm, followed by New Zealand and the United States with a typical home 200 sqm in size…

Australia has an average household size of just 2.5 people, with nearly half of the population living in 2-3 person households, the figures found…

Nearly a quarter of Australian households consist of only one person, although that’s not as bad as Denmark, where almost 40 per cent of citizens live by themselves…

The data was collected from reports provided by World Population Review, Statista, Eurostat and official census data.

This has some parallels to the United States where more people are living alone and houses are large.

Are there causal effects between these two statistics? Do people today generally want more individual living space? Does having a larger house lead to having a smaller household? Or are these two social features produced by separate factors?

One other interesting feature of this article: large houses are called McMansions. The opening line of the story:

It’s official: Australia is the king of the McMansion.

I would argue not all large houses are McMansions. For example, a 2,500 square foot home in the United States is likely not a McMansion (though it could be due to its architectural features or it is a tearown next to smaller homes). A 10,000 square foot home is probably too big to be a McMansion. Using McMansion as shorthand for large houses in general obscures the different kinds of big houses and how they interact with neighborhoods and communities.

How many American communities want super big houses?

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Americans have large houses. But not every community wants a lot of really big houses:

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“How big is a house?” mused Jeremy Samuelson, planning director for East Hampton, N.Y., where a working group recently proposed slashing the town’s maximum-allowed house size in half, from 20,000 square feet to 10,000 square feet…

Towns from Aspen to Martha’s Vineyard are in a big-house brouhaha. Critics say mushrooming mansions cramp scenic vistas and local charm, consume excessive energy and inflate prices…

Truro capped new homes at 3,600 square feet in 2017, but then, Shedd says, officials stuck in an amendment allowing bigger builds with special permits. “I’m not saying it was done on the sly,” says Shedd. “Our town meetings drag on. I was probably glazed over.”…

Routt County, Colo.—home to Steamboat Ski Resort—adopted a proposal capping house sizes at 7,500 square feet in June. Debated for months, the hot-button issue packed public meetings…

In Pitkin County—home to Aspen—officials slashed the maximum new home from 15,000 to 9,250 square feet last November, noting that a big house raises “greenhouse gas emissions and increases environmental havoc.”

What strikes me about these discussions is something I first discovered when researching the use of the term McMansion: the size of a big house is relative in terms of size and quantity. In the case of McMansions, a 3,000 square foot new house might be normal in newer neighborhoods but it can be considered a monstrosity next to a 1,100 square foot postwar ranch house. Or is an 8,000 square foot home a McMansion or a mansion? Depends on who is considering the home and where it is located. Or one teardown McMansion might not be a big deal but dozens or hundreds over a decade or two might be considered going too far.

In the cases of these even larger homes, how big is too big or how many is too many? The discussions here do not appear to be taking place within communities where they are contemplating going from no big houses to some. They are considering whether to have no more big houses. Apparently there is some limit to be reached soon or no more might be allowed.

Will such moves push those who desire giant houses to other communities? Will they end up in municipalities just outside these jurisdictions? Are there other communities who would see this as an opportunity rather than a problem?

Seeing teardowns and infill homes throughout DuPage County

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While working on a project, I noticed something while driving through a number of DuPage County communities: there are teardown homes everywhere. They are not just limited to desirable downtowns; they are spread throughout numerous residential neighborhoods. They are often easy to spot: much larger than adjacent homes and with a particular architectural style with stone or fake stone bases, lots of roof peaks, and plentiful garage space. Some could be categorized as teardown McMansions. (Some of these homes might be infill homes where homes were constructed on empty land.)

These teardowns follow some of the patterns I found in over 300 teardowns in Naperville. The architecture and design is similar. The homes are often located next to older homes, often from the postwar era, from the twentieth century.

One difference is that these teardowns are spread throughout communities. In Naperville, teardowns tended to cluster near the desirable downtown area. In some of the communities I drove through, teardowns and/or infill homes are all over the place. Some of these communities do not have downtowns like Naperville and have housing stocks of different ages. It was not unusual to see a teardown suddenly in a neighborhood on the edge of a community when in Naperville the teardowns tend to cluster in particular neighborhoods.

In a county that is largely built out and with suburbs now 50-170+ years old, there will be more opportunities for property owners, builders, and developers to tear down old homes and construct new ones. My sense is that while communities may have regulations about what can be rebuilt, the general atmosphere is in favor of these new homes as long as there is interest and resources to make it happen.

“A man’s home is his castle,” McMansions, and the “castle” that houses a McDonald’s

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Let me try to put together a few ideas:

  1. Americans tend to subscribe to the phrase “a man’s home is his castle” and all that means for a private home owner.
  2. Plenty of Americans like McMansions, large homes with dubious architecture often found in sprawling neighborhoods or as much larger houses compared to their neighbors.
  3. McDonald’s is a famous American brand and helped give rise to fast food that goes well with driving and the private single-family homes of suburbia.

Put these together and you have a McDonald’s in a castle in northern Indiana:

Image from Google Street View

Only in America might someone build a gas station castle (it looks like a castle but in a McMansiony way) that contains a McDonald’s. I wonder if it attracts any more customers just because it is a castle.

(This building has apparently been around a while but I recently saw a story about it that caught my eye because I have seen other castle gas stations in other northern Indiana trips.)

Opening land for development and “subsidies for McMansions”

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A proposed bill in Utah would allow development on public lands. Critics say it would open the door for McMansions.

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Rep. Ivory, R-West Jordan, sponsored HJR19, a resolution supporting a piece of federal legislation called the Helping Open Underutilized Space to Ensure Shelter (HOUSES) Act. Ivory is a manager for two real estate affiliated companies — Mission Property Management and 9615 Property Management — according to his financial disclosure form.

“We’ve learned that about 150,000 acres of federal lands are within city boundaries,” Ivory told the House Public Utilities, Energy, and Technology Committee on Thursday evening. “There’s another about 600,000 acres that are within a mile of city limits.”

The HOUSES Act, sponsored by Utah Sen. Mike Lee last year would open up certain public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management to housing developers. Some critics of the legislation note that it doesn’t require those homes to be affordable, calling it a “McMansion Subsidy Act.”

The proposal would require that 85% of public lands sold be used for residential development and that 4 homes be built per acre. The other 15% could be used for commercial businesses or “other needs of potential communities.”

My guess is that the use of the word McMansion here refers less to a home with mixed-up or garish architectural features and more to big houses in the suburbs. More like “McMansions sprouting” or “cookie-cutter large homes” suddenly arriving in fields. The sprawl that has marked America for decades. And why should new housing opportunities go to people with resources? (See the different traits of McMansions here.)

At the same time, if these lands were opened up and they were filled with denser condos or communities of tiny homes, critics might still have concerns. Allowing the use of public land can be contentious as protected open spaces have value. If one goal is to not allow sprawl to take over everywhere, opening federal land is not a line some would want to cross.

Another question: does simply adding any housing to the housing stock help by adding to the supply? Or, is it more important that affordable housing is added? The charge of McMansions being constructed with subsidies suggests these may be houses for people who do not need help or that adding such housing might not help the housing issue.

Do Christmas movies avoid McMansions?

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What kinds of homes are featured in Christmas movies? One article suggests McMansions are rarely featured:

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Have you noticed that holiday movies are already streaming? And have you noticed the homes? They’re built for families who enjoy being together.

Rarely opulent “McMansions,” the homes featured in holiday family movies run the gamut from the family cabin in the woods to a stately family home that has been passed down through the generations.

The suggestion here is that the features of McMansions are not well-suited for these films. Here are some traits that might not work. Lots of square footage means family members are not around each other regularly. Unusual architectural features or interior designs do not look like traditional homes. A giant house on a small lot or looming over other homes does not appear friendly.

In contrast, a “good” home for a Christmas movie will be cozy, traditional in architecture and design, and present a particular appearance from the outside. The home might be tied to particular styles from the Victorian era through the mid-twentieth century when many Christian traditions and themes emerged in the Anglo-American sphere.

Given the way McMansions are treated in artistic endeavors, perhaps a McMansions could serve as the setting for a dystopian or black comedy Christmas film.

Here is what Americans gained in interior features with larger and larger new homes

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An analysis of data involving American homes from 1970 to 2022 shows several important changes:

Since the 1980s, the percentage of homes being constructed with four bedrooms has on the whole grown, while the percentage of two-bedroom homes have fallen. In 2022, nearly half of all homes constructed had four bedrooms, compared to two-bedroom homes at 9%.

This trend of larger homes is also shown through the number of bathrooms in new houses, with over a third having three or more baths, slightly more than the percentage of homes with two baths.

If you have more square footage, people might want more of these kinds of rooms. Who wants to share a bathroom? Can’t additional bedrooms be repurposed for other uses like an office or workout space? Haven’t all the shows on HGTV convinced viewers that more bedrooms and bathrooms increase the resale value of a home? Too bad we do not have a measure of the number of open concept living areas. Or, how many square feet are allocated to the kitchen, the space where Americans spend a lot of their time?

One more interesting chart regarding basements:

Basements have also become much less popular over the last five decades— the percentage of new homes with a full or partial basement in 1974 was 45%, compared to just 21% in 2022. Slab and other types of foundations have become the sweeping majority for new homes.

I wonder if this has more to do with more new homes constructed in places, like the South, where basements are less common as opposed to a declining interest in basements. This also suggests newer homes have less space underground and have more of their space above ground.

Are these changes due solely to the spread of McMansions? The headline may invoke McMansions but they were not the only style of larger home constructed in recent decades. As many new homes added square feet, their features shifted. McMansions may have had plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms but so did other new homes.