> Doug:
>
> "Wow, James, have you spent much time touring the U.S. landscape,
> what
> Kunstler calls the geography of nowhere? It's soul-destroyingly
> hideous."
>
> If you mean that Americans are hideous, I cannot agree with you. I
> read the
> news of 300 000 000 Americans as a good thing. And where else should
> they
> live but in houses?
What exactly is good about that many new houses? Houses in the US have grown immense. From 1100ft² in 1960 to 2400ft² in 2003. Family size has also decreased so we now have 893ft² per person up from 290ft² in 1960. As house size increases, resource use in buildings goes up, more land is occupied, available farmland is developed, increased impermeable surface results in more storm-water runoff, construction costs rise, and energy consumption increases. In comparing the energy performance of compact (small) and large single-family houses, we find that a small house built to only moderate energy-performance standards uses substantially less energy for heating and cooling than a large house built to very high energy-performance standards. When compared to multi-family dwellings even the small homes are substantially less efficient.
Houses built further out from urban areas increase commute times and fuel consumption. I guess since we have the whole pollution problem under control and the issue of climate change equally under control none of this matters. And since everyone has a place to live, clean water, etc. we can now afford to be as wasteful as we want. Happy days are here at last.
John Thornton