Household size and the housing stock

Trends in Home Size & Development Patterns

• New US homes roughly doubled in size since the 1950s while housing fewer people; many see “1950s suburbs on steroids” misaligned with smaller households.
• Some argue developers maximize house size and floor-area ratio on each legal lot because upper-market demand and appraisal rules reward square footage.
• Others counter that size is mostly fashion and market segmentation; in many regions demand is strong for smaller, denser, or more efficient units where zoning allows.
• Nationally, commenters note rising home size and shrinking lot size as broad trends.

Lot Design, Yards, and Density

• Several argue that narrower lots and moving homes closer to the street could yield more units and better-used backyards.
• Others value wide side yards as privacy, noise buffers, and fire breaks.
• Debate over front lawns: some see them as water-wasting dead space in a housing crisis; others see visible greenery as a neighborhood amenity worth incentivizing.

Is There a Housing Shortage or a Distribution/Finance Problem?

• One camp: there is a real shortage of dwellings in job-rich areas, with low vacancies and rising prices/rents; zoning and local opposition are key bottlenecks.
• Another camp: nationally, housing units exceed households; the core problem is maldistribution (jobs and people concentrating in a few metros), plus vacant/underused homes and speculative ownership.
• People highlight the difficulty of dual-earner households moving to cheaper regions and the non-fungibility of places (rights, culture, amenities).
• Similar tensions are noted in Europe and other rich countries with high prices despite greater density.

Zoning, NIMBYism, and Regulatory Barriers

• Many blame single-family zoning, minimum lot sizes, and bans on multi-unit configurations for preventing “the missing middle.”
• Personal accounts describe projects for dozens of apartments blocked by local opposition, not by Airbnbs or large investors.
• Others criticize building and planning codes that prevent very basic, low-cost housing, arguing standards are set for middle-class “luxury” and enforced even where density is low; defenders say safety rules are written in response to past disasters.

Investment Dynamics, Taxes, and Rents

• Several see housing primarily as an investment asset; propose progressive property or land value taxes, and vacancy or land banking taxes, to push large investors to sell and depress prices.
• Counter-arguments warn that investor capital also funds new construction; aggressive taxation might cut starts and worsen rent pressures.
• Significant back-and-forth on causality:
  • One side: high rents and vacancies are driven by investors, financial engineering, and, in some cases, algorithmic or tacit collusion.
  • Other side: rent levels mainly follow simple supply-demand (migration vs housing starts), with evidence cited from places where net migration far exceeds new builds.
• Some propose excluding primary residences from new taxes and phasing changes slowly to avoid mortgage/banking shocks.

Lifestyle, Space Needs, and Household Structure

• Disagreement over what constitutes “adequate” space:
  • Some say 1200–1500 sq ft can comfortably house a family and that building ever-larger homes in a shortage is irrational.
  • Others, especially with WFH and teenagers, see that size as cramped and treat larger suburban homes as a reasonable aspiration.
• Multi-generational and flexible two-unit houses are praised as historically effective, but modern zoning often bans fully separate secondary units.
• Basements are discussed as a source of “hidden” square footage in older homes; prevalence varies by region and frost line.

Broader Economic/Political Framing

• Several commenters frame the crisis as evidence of broader economic failure: regulation favoring incumbents and the wealthy, government mismanagement, and land becoming a vehicle for institutional accumulation rather than widespread ownership.
• Others push back, emphasizing the central role of basic supply constraints and local political resistance rather than a single villain (investors, STRs, or regulators alone).