Post-War homes (e.g. after WWII) in America were intended for the nuclear family and were typically under 1000 sq/ft. Most 60s and 70s ranch homes were 1200-1700 sq/ft and considered spacious.
A modern 2500 sq/ft house is at a minimum 3 bedroom, 3.5 bath, and a bonus room.
2500 sqft = 232 sqm
1000 sqft = 92 sqm
I am living in the latter with my wife plus one small child, and it's clear to us that we want more space for children later. 2500 sqft seems pretty large, but not crazy large either, especially with ~3 kids (=just two generations).
You can put a lot of people in 2500 square feet if you design it well instead of just slapping walls together.
It leads to interesting quirks in real estate listings, where identical houses get listed with very different sizes. Example, my house was listed at 1500sqft. Same model one row over was listed at 2000sqft. The 500sqft different is the basement - it's finished in both homes, but was not part of the original building listing (1972).
Another hallmark of these houses are complete lack of trim. They're just big boxes.
A more future-proof way to get around these building code limitations is 1) attic space, and 2) higher ceilings. You get a better feeling of space, and you can get more board-feet of storage in the same footprint.
Seattle is also full of illegal remodels, only some of which a lender will balk at (source: bought a quirky home, the owners had to remove features for us to buy it).
You do have to get creative with second bedrooms by installing Murphy beds or otherwise reducing furniture size and floor space. Modern furniture is way too big to fit in the rooms of a post-war house. A stacking washer/dryer is very useful. Basically anything that substitutes vertical space for horizontal space will help immensely. Ikea has stuff that's size-appropriate but very cheap.
The reason most houses are 2500 square feet nowadays is because you have to maintain a space for all the things you want to do inside your house. Whereas if you share space with your community for those things that many people do then you don't have to maintain a separate space for it.
Of course, we have more space than we "need" -- 2 additional bedrooms. But, again, they're just large enough for what they do. 1 has a guest bed (and not any room for anything else, really) and the other is an "office" which is handy during covid-19 for sure.
If we had kids, there would be room for them to sleep, but no playroom, for example. Our laundry is in the garage, as is our "workout room". That space is not counted in the official size of the house, because the garage is converted.
The additional things we'd want are all luxuries.
* Indoor room where we can work out (treadmill, bike, elliptical are all in the garage)
* Master bathroom with an actual walk in shower, space where we don't have to squeeze past each other getting ready, etc.
* Closet space
* Garage that can be used for parking cars and bikes, working on things, etc. (I've had a bike on a stand in the backyard for a month now, as I work on building it, and parts strewn all over a patio table)
All totally unnecessary, of course. But given that we have a decently-sized lot for silicon valley (6000sqft) it would be nice to have more indoor space. Especially since I spent all my waking hours in here now :)
Maybe if we didn't have a kid? Or if I could convince my wife to give up some things? We were just in the housing market and had to pass on these smaller houses very quickly. Not only that, but bigger houses were only 10-20% greater in cost than smaller ones...it was a no brainer to go with 2000 SQF.
> The reason most houses are 2500 square feet nowadays is because you have to maintain a space for all the things you want to do inside your house. Whereas if you share space with your community for those things that many people do then you don't have to maintain a separate space for it.
If you go to an office and keep your instrument in a locker someplace with practice rooms and your kids spend a lot of time elsewhere (outside, neighbors' houses, etc) then it probably is?
But yeah, for my wife and I (who only have one kid, but may want more) it was still the same thought process as you. We've been living in 1200 square feet with an 8 month old and we make it work but we're both working / studying / networking from the living room and going a little batty in the process, not to mention that our kitchen is tiny and probably not ventilated well enough given that the stove and oven are gas.
So we went for 2500 rather than enter the market and incur closing costs again if we want another kid or both wind up permanently remote post-COVID.
FWIW he's a single dad, and au pairs aren't always on duty. It's less lavish than it sounds.
Nothing in the legislation prohibits big houses. All it does is legalize small ones.
This is a prohibition on new big houses.
People in tech are so out of touch. Being able to hire people is lavish.
I have noticed that as houses approach 2000 Sq feet that luxury goes up faster than space, almost as if there is an asomtomic limit in that area. That is people buying smaller than 2000 seem to be looking for more space for the money, while those looking bigger are willing to spend more for the space to make it nice.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45420795#:~:text=The%20U....
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10902-016-9732-2
or do you own search.
This desire for extremely large houses just seems to be a combination of prior expectations that houses will be large and status seeking. Expectations can adjust over time and I don't put much value on status seeking.
[1] The BBC article lists "4 rooms per occupant" as the threshold beyond which there is no increase in satisfaction.
Consider a 3/3 with a kitchen, dining room and living room. For 4 people (two kids and two parents) you have 9 rooms, or a little over 2 per person.
This family would need to double their house size before maxing out.
* moving to a larger house leads to a small increase in "housing satisfaction" in most cases;
* houses larger than 4 rooms per occupant bring no increase in satisfaction with increasing size.
I generally think that there's too much of a slant toward large houses in the new housing stock in the US, though - they're more expensive to buy and maintain, and generally not the best choice for young people.
Also, Europe's prevalent masonry construction might "feel" solid, but that doesn't equal a high level of "building standards". A whole lot of western safety/environmental/plumbing/electrical/accessibility standards have changed in the past 20-70 years.
Much in the way chrome-adorned '60s US cars "felt" solid, and older people scoffed at the inornate "plastic cars" of the '90s, this perception of quality didn't translate to actual engineering superiority.
Some of the over-sized chintzy boxes that are built in the US are actually built to pretty dang good standards, i.e.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Building_Code
To use your example, ending slavery took a civil war that almost ended the US. And we're still dealing with the aftermath (economic equity, police brutality, etc).
The change in housing size that you're talking about encompasses a 40 year period, your slavery example, much longer. Culture can change, but it doesn't happen suddenly, by fiat, it happens on generational timescales.
Students frequently enjoy larger communities, especially since it's often a lot more affordable to have a large house split 10-20 ways than a medium house split five. ("Medium" is a stretch, since five bedrooms is a large house in the US.)
These aren't the most common arrangements, but that doesn't mean they should be prohibited.
In that case, build a duplex or triplex designed with easy (but lockable) access between units. That gives you a lot of living area, and the same building is also suitable for housing multiple families if it ever changes hands.
> In areas closer to colleges and universities, those homes end up being shared by large groups of students.
Multi-unit buildings with each unit shared between two people, or (now also allowed by the new zoning) 'cottage cluster' arrangements with a number of physically separate homes sharing one driveway/common area.
Multigenerational families are not better served. If they're doing a new build, it can work. But imagine trying to purchase not one, but four houses on the same lot. That's a helluva coincidence to wait for, for them all to be vacant simultaneously.
I am right now and have done so in various ways for the past 25 years, it is vastly better to have some separation.
I'm not going to generalize. But for us, multi-generational homes happen over time as opposed to moving the whole family at once regardless. Kids grow up and need space, but can't afford to buy a place. Parents get older and move in with kids, etc etc.
I totally agree!
I didn't mean to imply this bit about house size is good. In general, this measure removes piles of restrictions on land use and that's one of the big reasons I like it. I was just pointing out that there are some work-arounds.
Its a way of depriving city of property taxes, that would have otherwise have taxed multiple dwellings for the same amount of people. So the 2500 sqft limit is to collect more tax.
Edit: You need a place to plug-in your EV at night.
Not only do the very old still drive, many prefer it because they’re old.
Go talk to some old folks. I did when I put together a community funded Tesla Model 3 rideshare for them in a retirement community. The pool is their preferred exercise method to walking, especially in inclement weather (you ever walk a mile in the July Florida/Texas/Arizona heat? I have in all three, and I would not recommend it).
EDIT: @jeffbee Responding here as HN has throttled my comment replies.
> That's contrary to all available data. People over 70 are the least-likely group of adults to have drivers' licenses and have the highest public transport mode share or any group, take the fewest trips, and travel the smallest distance per day. The elderly are arguably the people who stand to gain the most from compact patterns of development.
And yet, they choose to live in low to medium density areas that require an automobile versus urban areas. Behold the revealed preference!
https://www.prb.org/which-us-states-are-the-oldest/
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/time-series/de...
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...
https://i2.wp.com/www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/...
Not in the US! It's pretty common for them to continue driving until they have enough accidents that they're dropped by their insurance company.
https://www.businessinsider.com/young-people-drivers-license...
https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/pubs/hf/pl11028/i...
The Florida retirement developments figured this out a long time ago: electric golf carts.
If I recall correctly in one they even recently conducted a golf cart based political rally in support of a presidential candidate.
Exercise?
Outside of the obvious downsides to a car centric culture, the united states would definitely have healthier people if it were feasible to walk to more destinations. And I don't mean this just on an individual fitness level either. Getting out of the car and actually walking and interacting with people is an important community aspect, which this country severely lacks.
...if not for the actual practical problem, which is that for a lot of people living in dense urban areas, there's no way to keep an EV charged up. Street parking and surface lots don't have chargers, old parking garages and almost all new parking garage construction doesn't have chargers, apartment buildings or shared houses with official or ad-hoc parking don't have chargers.
I have that problem myself: I'd probably have replaced my car with an EV already if only I actually had somewhere to plug it in.
However I agree with the rest of your comment. My wife and I looked into plug-in hybrids (all the tax credit, none of the range anxiety) but there's no place to charge it so we just got a regular hybrid.
Electric bicycles by contrast take up the same space as any other bicycle.
I agree that getting rid of government mandated parking will decrease government-subsidized car storage (which is good across the board). Sure that will affect EVs, but it will also affect ICEs equally.
Having a driveway/garage allows you to charge your EV while parked. An ICE you can just park wherever.
[1] although, my plugin has very good range on gas, and next to nothing on a full charge, so I really only charge if it's free, gives me good parking, or to exercise my backup generator.
I think the sentiment is good but I see it going wrong quickly unless you have some way to ensure that every neighborhood gets at least enough charging to adopt EVs in the first place.
As for on-street parking, I don't feel particularly inclined to subsidize (via my tax payments) parking for the public's gross overuse of cars. I'd rather my tax dollars go to transit and alternative infrastructure.
In my neighborhood, these are also duplexes (maybe coincidentally, maybe not, I dunno), which are allowed to be bigger.
In areas closer to colleges and universities, those homes end up being shared by large groups of students.
Yeah, but these big houses are probably old. In the universities near me, such large houses haven't been built in my lifetime. I doubt it's too much different in Portland.
If you want an existing home over 5000 square feet within city limits, expect to pay upwards of $1.2 million if you want to live out towards the suburbs, or $1.5 million for something closer to dense walkable neighborhoods.
Personally, I'd like a private bathroom, but prefer the shared kitchen, dining room, and living room.