I have lived in many sizes of apts/houses. What mattered was not how big the space was, but who I was sharing it with.
Joanna
jthorn65 at sbcglobal.net wrote:
>On 14 Oct 2006 at 9:09, James Heartfield wrote:
>
>
>
>>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
>
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>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
>
>
>
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