Word: mcmansions
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...maybe that's O.K., because the Great McMansion Repurposing has begun. People are finding new uses for huge houses that were once inhabited only by nuclear families. A film collective in Seattle has taken over one behemoth, turning the wine closet into an editing room. Outside San Diego, the former residence of a husband and wife and two kids is being converted into a home for autistic adults. Architects around the world are dreaming about what they might do if they could get their hands on such massive spaces. A group in Ohio wants to create suburban greenhouses. Another...
...McMansion, perhaps the most garish symbol of the age of real estate excess, is fast becoming a relic. For the first time in 15 years, the average size of a new house is falling, according to data from the National Association of Home Builders. That fits shifting demographics. As baby boomers gray, fewer people have kids at home. In 2000, 33% of households included children; by 2030, only 27% will. "Single people and households without children don't want big houses on big lots," says Arthur Nelson, director of metropolitan research at the University of Utah's College of Architecture...
...Longtime McMansion residents too are looking for more economical ways to use their space. In the lush suburbs of Connecticut, some homeowners have started to rent out rooms. And even among those not looking for help with the mortgage, a movement to make supersize homes cozier is bubbling up. Architect Sarah Susanka, a small-house advocate, is finding that people are interested in making modifications, like lowering ceilings, to create more intimacy. Mathieu Gallois, who came up with the McMansion-splitting project in Australia, hit on the idea while visiting a 4,000-sq.-ft. home and feeling that with...
...there is focus on this. Rahm Emanuel has a great line: "A crisis is a terrible thing to waste." Jeff Immelt at General Electric has another great line, that this isn't a recession, but a reset. It's a reexamination of how we've been living. Maybe the McMansion era is crashing to an end. It doesn't mean that you can't have a big house, but the ethos of what you need is changing. (See 25 people to blame for the financial crisis...
...also right that there would be more sensible ways to spend it. There would also be less sensible ways to spend it. A trillion dollars' worth of bad ideas - sprawl-inducing highways and bridges to nowhere, ethanol plants and pipelines that accelerate global warming, tax breaks for overleveraged McMansion builders and burdensome new long-term federal entitlements - would be worse than mere waste. It would be smarter to buy every American an iPod, a set of Ginsu knives and 600 Subway foot-longs...