Reply #61: Problems with your point of view [View All]

[cgrindley]

1. New home construction is usually budgeted on a dollars per square foot equation. A small home (under 2000 sqare feet) can be just as wastefully extravagant as a large one (over 2000 square feet). And a 4,000 square foot home doesn't have to be a palace. It's the sorts of materials that go into said home that are the problem, but even then, just because a material is expensive doesn't mean that it is inherently damaging to anything or anyone. A radiant floor or radiant wall heating system, for example, will be massively expensive, but far more efficient than electric baseboards. Just as purchasing organic vegetables is significantly more expensive than purchasing factory-farmed crap, the same is true of construction materials.

2. A new large home is probably far more energy efficient than a similarly sized Victorian home and about a zillion times more efficient than a simliarly sized colonial home (I'm in CT, so 18th century houses are as common as mud). For that matter, a brand new split level piece of shit is constructed very poorly indeed compared to those hated McMansions, many of which contain highly sophisticated and energy efficient heating and cooling systems, etc. No one, on the other hand, recommends tearing down Victorian houses or burning them out of neighborhoods.

3. I think that you're complaining about the lifestyle choices not the structures. If I had a 5000 square foot home, for example, my parents, my brother and my father-in-law would be living with us. Up until the 1950's, that was the usual pattern of American living, a large, extended family sharing a good-sized home. Your beef is with selfish piece of shit yuppies and their castles (to you, it is all symbolic).

4. I think you're also complaining about the aesthetics of the thing. I have no problem with that, but you are opening yourself up to some hysterical charge of Elitism based on some the concept of an educated design ethos influencing taste (I happen to believe that aesthetics are largely a matter of education so you've got no argument with me, but someone's bound to flip out on you).