Tag Archives: single-family homes

The BBC on Levittown 60 years later

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The BBC goes back to Levittown, Pennsylvania and finds that it looks like much of America:

Now, as then, the community is home to a diverse cross-section of middle-class voters. But whereas in 1960 unemployment rates were less than 6% and business in Levittown could not expand fast enough to meet growing demand, the outlook for current residents is grimmer…

Now, the outer roads around Levittown are lined with strip malls, and in them a dozen different grocery and convenience stores, a Super WalMart, McDonalds, and hotel chains.

The houses, once indistinguishable from one another, have developed individual flair: on one street, one house has painted pink brick face, while another has built a covered front porch…

It’s not a greying district by any means – thanks in part to the housing collapse, Levittown is once again an abundant source of inexpensive housing, and as a result more new families are moving here to get their start.

The Levittowns are often held up as exemplars of the massive suburban boom in the United States in the decades following World War Two. The mass production of the homes was unique then though the techniques would look fairly normal today. I like that this article emphasizes the changing nature of this suburb that was once derided for its similar looking homes and relatively homogenous population. We would do well to have such a view of all suburbs: they change over time even if some of the physical pieces, such as single-family homes or strip malls, are the same.

The two best books I can recommend on Levittown(s):

1. The Levittowners by Herbert Gans. Based on ethnographic work conducted during the early years of the development, Gans combats some of the common suburban stereotypes.

2. Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown by Barbara Kelly. Kelly gives more details about how Levittown residents have customized their homes and what this means for the community.

College students rent cheap but luxurious McMansions

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Here is another use for McMansions (and much better than one California option from last week): rent them to college students.

While students at other colleges cram into shoebox-size dorm rooms, Ms. Alarab, a management major, and Ms. Foster, who is studying applied math, come home from midterms to chill out under the stars in a curvaceous swimming pool and an adjoining Jacuzzi behind the rapidly depreciating McMansion that they have rented for a song.

Here in Merced, a city in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley and one of the country’s hardest hit by home foreclosures, the downturn in the real estate market has presented an unusual housing opportunity for thousands of college students. Facing a shortage of dorm space, they are moving into hundreds of luxurious homes in overbuilt planned communities.

Forget the off-to-college checklist of yesteryear (bedside lamp, laundry bag, under-the-bed storage trays). This is “Animal House” 2011.

Double-height Great Room? Check.

Five bedrooms? Check.

Chandeliers? Check.

Then there are the three-car garages, wall-to-wall carpeting, whirlpool baths, granite kitchen countertops, walk-in closets and inviting gas fireplaces.

This article provides an overview of an interesting situation but asking a few more questions would reveal a lot more:

1. If students live in such nice homes during college, what does this do to their expectations when they return home or after they graduate? If you are used to living in a nice McMansion, how do you move up after that?

2. In what condition do these students leave these McMansions?

3. The story paints these students as helping desperate homeowners. At the same time, homeowners in nice suburban subdivisions may not always look favorably at college students who can tend to be loud and unruly. Are all the town and gown relationships here all good as the story suggests?

4. Might some of these students stick around in these neighborhoods after college? If so, how would this change the neighborhoods?

To sum up, is this a long-term solution or a temporary solution to issues in one of the foreclosure capitals of the United States?

How much it costs to live in the cheaper suburbs or expensive New York City

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Opponents of sprawl argue that while many prospective buyers move further away from work in order to buy bigger yet cheaper homes, there is a cost. One website argues that the each mile closer to work is $15,900 that could be spent on a house:

We all know that driving to and from work every day is costly, but exactly howmuch of a toll does each mile of commuting take on your finances? This True Cost of Commuting graphic breaks it down.

Taking stats and calculations previously mentioned by Mr. Money Mustache, the infographic illustrates just how expensive commuting is. Each mile you live from work costs $795 in commuting expenses per year (assuming a driving cost of 34 cents per mile and factoring time lost with a salary of $25 per hour). $795 a year for just one mile! You could buy a house worth $15,900 more with that, as Mr. Money Mustache pointed out in his article, since $795 would cover the interest on a 5% mortgage rate.

If you don’t want to calculate in the time-is-money factor, each mile (one way) of commuting will cost you $170 a year. It’s a compelling reason to move as close to work if you can (or bike to work or telecommute).

See the large infographic here. I don’t know about Mr. Money Mustache’s calculations but this is a sizable number.

At the same time, there were reports this week that the Occupy Wall Street protestors tend to live in pricier homes. As Megan McArdle notes, this is a consumption choice where people decide to spend more of their income on a home in a great city:

My initial reaction was the same as many people I’ve seen in comments sections: the protest is in New York, which is expensive.  This is hardly surprising.

But on second thought, I don’t think that’s quite right.  At least some of the houses identified by the Daily Caller are in places like Texas and Wisconsin.  But more importantly, I’m not sure we should “discount” these home values for location.  The fact is that living in an expensive city is a consumption choice.
You hear this argument all the time from people in New York.  “Rich?  Hah!  We’ve got four people in 1600 square feet, and our school bills are going to put us into bankruptcy.”  Many New Yorkers believe that they should be given some sort of income tax abatement because of the expense of living there (with the lost revenue being made up from “really rich” people, natch).  Slightly less affluent New Yorkers frequently believe that landlords should be forced to offer them “reasonably sized” apartments at a modest fraction of their income, because after all, otherwise they couldn’t afford to live in New York…
Living in a blue state is a choice.  If coming to New York meant that you had to put four people in a three bedroom apartment that’s uncomfortably far from a subway line, instead of buying a nice little condo in Omaha, this does not mean that you are not “really” better off than your counterpart in Omaha; it means that you have chosen to consume your extra wealth in the form of “living in New York” rather than in the form of spacious real estate, cheap groceries, and an easy commute.

So what people in the Midwestern suburbs might spend on a daily 20 mile each way commute in a SUV translates into a more expensive apartment in New York City.

Both stories cited above suggest consumption is a choice. But is it truly an unfettered choice? What would lead some people to aim for the bigger yet cheaper house in the suburbs and others to spend more money on a smaller place in a cosmopolitan paradise? Perhaps this information would help both sides engage in conversation rather than talk past each other and try to force the other side to follow their logic…

Of course, we could look at the broader trend of American political and cultural discourse on this subject. On the whole, government policies have promoted suburban living while a few big cities, such as New York City, have successful dense, mass-transit oriented living. Cultural discourse, even if it is shifting toward the younger generation’s increased interest in denser living, still privileges the suburban American Dream.

Even Gawker says “The McMansion is dead”

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Since Gawker is reporting it, does this really mean that the McMansion is dead?

This heartless recession has stolen from America our most treasured national totems. Huge SUVs? Too gas-guzzling. Sprawling suburbs far removed from the “diverse” cities? Reduced to slums. And now, the recession is coming for our very homes.

By “our,” I mean “people with too much money and too little taste.” The WSJ says that the humble McMansion—the rightful reward of all hardworking Americans willing to take on a $450,000 mortgage and a 75-minute commute in order to have a huge, useless foyer lined with the thinnest sheet of marble veneer—is no longer the popular thing to build, for builders who want to build homes that will actually sell. Shrines to conspicuous consumption are out! By necessity.

Goodbye, grand foyers! Adios, spiral staircases! Hello, newly poor American rationalizing their now meager living spaces like a bunch of formerly wealthy people wiped out by financial calamity—which they are!

Totem could be taken as referring to a religious object of devotion, a la Durkheim. If so, do Americans worship SUVs, McMansions, and suburbs? That would be interesting to discuss.

Granted, Gawker is quoting an interesting Wall Street Journal story that suggests the wealthy/big homes of the future that will include “drop zones,” space for an elevator, a “lifestyle center” (not to be confused with gussied-up outdoor malls masquerading as community centers known by the same name), steam showers (goodbye soaker tubs!), and outdoor living space.

A reminder: this is the same website that has this description leading off its stories about Jersey Shore (this is from earlier this year).

When watching Jersey Shore, the most important sociological experiment of our time, we’re looking for new and exciting behavior.

Me thinks there may be some hyperbole and/or mocking there. At least that is what I hope.

What builders say the homes of 2015 will look like

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If you are looking for big changes in the homes of 2015, you probably won’t find them. But here is what builders say they do expect to change for the new homes of 2015:

According to the results of the study, surveyed home builders expect new single-family homes to check in at an average of 2,150 square feet. Current single family homes measure around 2,400 square feet, which is already a decrease from the peak home size in 2007 of 2,521…

Other things that make up the home of 2015? No more living room. According to the survey, 52 percent of builders expect the living room to merge with other spaces and 30 percent believe that it will vanish completely to save on square footage. Instead, expect to see great rooms — a space that combines the family and living room and flows into the kitchen.

Expect to see more:

  • spacious laundry rooms
  • master suite walk-in closets
  • porches
  • eat-in kitchens
  • two-car garages
  • ceiling fans

Expect to see less:

  • mudrooms
  • formal dining rooms
  • four bedrooms or more
  • media or hobby rooms
  • skylights

Many of these changes reflect a desire for builders and consumers going green. Smaller space means more efficient heating and cooling. Ceiling fans distribute heat evenly while skylights, on the other hand, release heat.

The two big changes proposed here aren’t revolutionary. Particularly if the economy remains in the doldrums, homes will decrease in size. The real question is what would happen if the economy really picked up again – would builders go back to larger homes? Also, 2,150 square feet is still pretty large and perhaps is more of a reflection of the smaller number of people per home these days. The formal living room hasn’t been too popular for a while and this could also be behind the drop in home sizes. Of course, compared to the sweep of American homes over the last sixty years, these are changes.

The rest seem like pretty small adjustments. I suppose I was hoping for something a little more revolutionary but I’ll have to settle for bigger laundry rooms and a few other things. The picture attached to the story of a more slanted Hawaii home that can take advantage of “Photovoltaics” looks  a lot more interesting than the rest of the story. Would Americans buy a home that looked like that just to save on energy?

Also: where do builders get their ideas about these things? From surveys and marketing they conduct or industry-wide figures and trends? What if we could ask what builders themselves would like to see change? Perhaps they simply want to go with what the public wants.

And what about those granite countertops and stainless steel appliances?

Drop in US homeownership rate the greatest since the Great Depression

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The title of this post is what the headline for this AP story should say – instead, the AP headline is “Census: Housing bust worst since Great Depression.” The problem with the headline is this: do people know what a “housing bust” is? Does this mean that the American housing market is in the worst shape that it has been since the Great Depression? Is the homeownership rate or are housing values at the same level as the Great Depression? Not necessarily. Here is what the story really is:

The American dream of homeownership has felt its biggest drop since the Great Depression, according to new 2010 census figures released Thursday.

The analysis by the Census Bureau found the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent last year. While that level remains the second highest decennial rate, analysts say the U.S. may never return to its mid-decade housing boom peak in which nearly 70 percent of occupied households were owned by their residents…

Nationwide, the homeownership rate fell to 65.1 percent – or 76 million occupied housing units that were owned by their residents – from 66.2 percent in 2000. That drop-off of 1.1 percentage points is the largest since 1940, when homeownership plummeted 4.2 percentage points during the Great Depression to a low of 43.6 percent.

So the percentage drop is what is important here: it fell from nearly 70 percent in the mid-2000s to 65.1 percent today. This is similar to the 4.2% drop during the Great Depression. But notice: the homeownership rate in 1940 was 43.6 percent while it is still above 65% today. Overall, we are ahead of the 1940 figures even though the homeownership drop suggests that this recent period has had a similar effect on homeownership as the Great Depression.

Another interesting piece of news from this Census data on homeownership:

Measured by race, the homeownership gap between whites and blacks is now at its widest since 1960, wiping out more than 40 years of gains.

This is not good. The homeownership rate for blacks and Latinos increased small amounts from 2000 to 2010 but the gap has widened. Perhaps the American Dream, at least the homeownership part, has never truly really been available to everyone.

The Wall Street Journal on turning McMansions into affordable housing

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Others have already suggested this idea but the Wall Street Journal reports on another call for turning McMansions into affordable housing:

McMansions, a type of home became popular with affluent boomers during better times, have fallen out of favor as more consumers seek smaller, more affordable homes that cost less to operate. They also want to trim the gas tab by living closer to their jobs and public transportation – the opposite of McMansion developments deep in suburbia filled with gas-guzzling SUVs. (There’s no precise definition of a McMansion, but it’s often a case of you know it when you see it.)

Such changes in taste — and, of course, the foreclosure crisis — has left America saddled with about 30 million more homes on large lots than the market needs, The Atlantic Cities writes. But rather than let them languish on the market indefinitely, Mr. Nelson suggests converting these excess homes into affordable housing or housing for multi-generational or multi-family households. (Developments called Mr. Nelson for comment, but he was not available.)

Such homes, he points out, can have more bathrooms than bedrooms, allowing for residential space that could be divided into private units, with a common kitchen and living room. Some already have or could be outfitted with second or third kitchens. Plus, there’s plenty of room for several cars and, usually, enough of a backyard for a swing set or two.

“When you add up the spaces and how they’re distributed, the typical McMansion can be occupied by three-to-five households with their own splendid privacy, their own large space,” Mr. Nelson is quoted as saying.

Just because there may be these larger housing units available does not mean that it would be easy to make them into affordable units and/or rentals. Here are some obstacles:

1. Whoever owns these houses would have to agree to this. Would the owners want this or is this an idea from critics who don’t like these homes that want this to happen? If the homes are in foreclosure, do the banks want to jettison them quickly and do the new buyers want to convert them into more units?

2. One can’t go into many neighborhoods where McMansions are located and simply subdivide the houses into five or six units. This would require zoning changes or special exemptions from a community. If the neighbors found out about this, I imagine many would not be happy. How many would want several houses in a large neighborhood to start being effectively apartments/condos? There would be questions about traffic, safety, and perhaps under the surface, who exactly would be moving into these affordable housing units.

3. The locations of many of these homes could still lead to affordability issues. If the McMansions are in exurbs, it would require a lot of driving to get to jobs, schools, and other places. The houses may be more affordable but the other costs of sprawl would still show up.

These are not insurmountable issues but it is not necessarily an easy or quick path from McMansion to source of affordable housing.

British architects say British homes are too small

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While new American homes have gotten slightly smaller in the last few years and a number of commentators see this as a good thing, the Royal Institute of British Architects says British homes are too small:

The RIBA, which looked at 3,418 three-bedroom homes across 71 sites in England, said the squeeze is depriving thousands of families of space needed for children to do homework, for adults to relax and for guests to stay.

The findings were based on building regulations introduced in London in July which set the minimum space benchmark of 96 sq metres (1,033 sq ft) for an average three-bed home…

But research found the average floor area of new homes is 88 sq metres (947 sq ft). And the most common size is 74 sq metres (797 sq ft)…

In 2009, a report by the Government’s former design watchdog, the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, found new homes in Britain were the smallest in Europe.

It revealed homes in Greece and Denmark had almost twice the floor space of UK homes.

The argument here is that these “cramped houses” are “depriving households of the space they need to live comfortably and cohesively.” This is an interesting argument: the smaller house is harming residents, affecting their comfort (physical) and cohesion (social). Can there really be a case made that these homes are causing long-term harm to residents and families? If so, it is the homes themselves causing the trouble or the expectations about how much space the family should have and for whatever reason, can’t have?

Could there be some financial self-interest here on the part of these architects? Does the small average size of British homes necessarily mean that citizens openly desire bigger homes and are not getting their wish?

Are these smaller homes part of a larger effort to reduce the effects of suburbs and sprawl?

Tracing the McMansion Palladian window back to 16th-century Italy

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A common design feature of the American McMansion is the Palladian window, often over the front doorway and showing off the expansive, two-story foyer. One writer suggests Palladian design features can be found throughout the Pittsburgh region:

Want to see more? OK, let’s take a walk in any local area. Aspinwall or Avalon? Highland Park or Shadyside? You’ll wear yourself out counting Palladian features on houses and apartments, occasionally a grand facade in one place, sometimes just a simple Palladian window ornamenting the attic of a modest home in another.

And then, before you’re totally exhausted, take a drive through Upper St. Clair or Peters and take in all of the Palladian windows you will find on what seems like every fifth McMansion built in those towns in the past 30 years.

Continuing, the same writer gives us some insights into how Antonio Palladio’s designs became popular and part of the American architectural vocabulary:

Palladio designed about 45 villas and palazzos (country houses and town houses) for wealthy clients in and around his adopted home town of Vicenza and nearby Venice, which is about 40 miles away. He also designed significant public buildings in both towns, including major churches in Venice — the best known being the church of San Giorgio Maggiore — which is directly across the water from the Piazza San Marco and the subject of thousands of picture postcards over the years.

But, what really brought him fame is his published work “I Quattro Libri dell’ Architettura” or “The Four Books of Architecture.” These books, when translated into English at the beginning of the 18th century, captivated English architects, who eagerly copied his works and his style. Palladianism coursed like a river through the architectural styles of the Georgian Period — the approximately 120-year reign of the Kings George I through IV. As the prevailing styles in England at the time of the flowering of the American colonies, they were copied here in public buildings, churches and houses.

Thomas Jefferson, as a gentleman architect, was infatuated, and based his designs for Monticello on Palladian ideals. He even proposed a near-copy of a famous Palladian villa as his unsuccessful bid for the design of a presidential mansion in Washington. (Today’s White House is a somewhat more Anglicized version of Palladianism.)

What makes the Palladian features of McMansions problematic for critics (an example here) is that it is not seen as being “authentic.” For example, the Palladian window might sit beneath a French gable roof. Thomas Jefferson may have popularized the style but he did so in a more “true” structure that incorporates a number of a Palladian elements rather than simply picking one part out and slapping it up on the facade because it looks nice.

Even though I have heard about Palladian features many times, I was unaware about its roots in 16th century Italy. Is there anywhere in the general American education (grade school through college) where more modern architectural features comes up? I know students learn about Greek columns and temples but what about more modern buildings, like the steel skeletons of skyscrapers, the balloon-framed house, roof styles, and more. Is this a deficit in general knowledge that encourages architectural pastiche like McMansions? Is this generally left to history and art classes? What if all college graduates had the knowledge of a basic architectural field guide that they then could mentally carry around for the rest of their lives?

The Atlantic declares “The Beginning of the End for Suburban America”

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While this is not the only recent claim that the suburban era in America is coming to an end, this piece still has a bold headline and claim:

In the years following World War II, the United States experienced an unprecedented consumption boom. Anything you could measure was growing. A Rhode Island-sized chunk of land was bulldozed to make new suburbs every single year for decades. America rounded into its present-day shape.

Along the way, there were three inexorable trends at the base of the societal pyramid. First, we plowed more energy into our homes each and every year. We cooled and heated our houses more (sometimes wastefully, sometimes not), brought in more and more appliances, added televisions and computers and phones. Per capita electricity shot up from about 4,000 kilowatt-hours per US resident to over 13,000 kilowatt-hours by the 2000s. Second, we needed more electricity because our houses got huge. The median home size shot up from about 1,500 square feet in the early 1970s to more than 2,200 square feet in the mid-200s. Third, we drove more and more miles every year to get around and between our sprawled-out cities. Back in 1960, Americans drove 0.72 trillion miles. By 2000, that number had reached 2.75 trillion miles. In 2007, vehicle miles traveled hit 3.02 trillion…

Taken together, the end of growth in residential electricity consumption and vehicle miles traveled form a momentous signal. The United States we all grew up with is changing, or rather, it’s changed and the numbers are beginning to reflect that. The growth in housing size, electricity demand and miles traveled were the hallmarks of the suburban/exurban era. They were the statistics of sprawl — but also of economic growth. Now that their relentless upward march has stopped, what happens? We need a new model for American prosperity that doesn’t require ever greater injections of fossil energy. That’s a generational challenge that hasn’t been captured by the pro- or anti-green jobs rhetoric here in Washington.

Two quick thoughts come to mind:

1. I wonder if these are symptoms regarding sprawl and don’t really tell the full story of what is happening. None of these factors alone makes sprawl happen. Many would argue that certain government policies, stretching back to the New Deal and decisions made to spend government money on interstates and roads and make mortgages more affordable. Such policies are still in place: more money is spent on roads than mass transit, there is much talk about how to boost home sales and write off mortgage debt, and how to lower the price of gasoline. Could these figures cited in this article simply be reactions to certain market factors and not reflect deeper cultural and political shifts?

2. We’ve heard this story about the end of sprawl before. I was reminded of this when my American Suburbanization class recently finished Kenneth Jackson’s 1987 classic Crabgrass Frontier. In the final chapter, Jackson also suggests that American suburban growth will eventually slow, probably due to energy problems. This article in The Atlantic and Jackson are not the only people predicting this: many more have said that the suburbs are unsustainable and eventually Americans will have to pursue other development forms. But harkening back to my first point, whatever crisis may arise still has to be big enough to overcome an established cultural and political ideology that supports suburbs. In terms of miles driven, what if electric cars make driving cheaper (or, “Is a Car Battery Subsidy Just a Sprawl Subsidy?”)? What if new technology can ensure that McMansions are energy efficient? Who wants to be the first politician to tell voters that the suburban dream of a single-family home on at least a little yard in a good neighborhood is no longer attainable? What if the economy picks up again and homes get larger again?

In the end, how do we know that this is really the point where we have turned a corner and the American suburbs are now on the decline? Could the future suburbs be more dense, a la New Urbanist developments, and more energy efficient while retaining their key suburban traits? These three statistics do suggest something has changed – but there is a long way to go before we can write off the American suburbs.