You wanting a bigger house is bad for America

[huge 3795]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/ethical-questions-big-houses-american-dream-12916168.php

The idea has some merit but this is sloppy ass writing.  Or am I just tired after my delicious lunch?

[PRONG HORN 3161]

 

Having front and back lawns that get synthetic fertilizer dumped on them at least once a year are worse than the size of the house.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by PRONG HORN

['stache 21892]

I'm a huge critic of urban sprawl and McMansions.  Just a means to separate from "undesirable" and surround yourself with a bunch of stuff you don't need.  I love my 1300 square foot 2 bed 1 bath house.  I may need an upgrade now that I have two kids, but I'm gonna do everything I can to make it work where I'm at, and if I upgrade, it'll be for one extra bedroom and one extra bathroom, maybe, somewhere nearby (not the fucking suburbs), and only if I can afford it.  I can make my small house work for a family of four and will do so for as long as I can.

Our obsession with cheaply built faux luxury and size for worthless stuff is a huge criticism on our American sociaty as a whole, in my opinion.

 

 

[52-80 19270]

Houses are larger but their construction is like shit or worse.  Stick-framing and drywall is soooo cheap

[DaysOff 7977]

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/local/gray-matters/article/ethical-questions-big-houses-american-dream-12916168.php

The idea has some merit but this is sloppy ass writing.  Or am I just tired after my delicious lunch?

You're just tired. It was commie bullshit wrapped in a diatribe against larger homes.

 

[Bevo 13601]

Hate urban sprawl.

Hate crime and worrying about crime.

Hate the dirty urban areas with ridiculous traffic.

Love cities in the 250K size.

Live in Austin which I loved back in the 80s. Now it is becoming another Dallas or Houston.

[huge 3795]

So the "housekeepers" would be happier on the couch?  How the fuck does that work?  People hiring other people to clean is a bad thing because......those people should be studying urban planning?

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, PRONG HORN said:

 

Having front and back lawns that get synthetic fertilizer dumped on them at least once a year are worse than the size of the house.

 

 

Yeah. Should just have some of your scat buddies video their own fertilization techniques. 

[Samson's Wig 3194]

The flaw in this woman's thinking can be summed up in her own words.

Quote

"Ethically, I believe that the American Dream should not be allowed to devolve into a zero-sum game, in which one person’s gain comes at others’ loss."

It is not a zero-sum game, and presenting it as such is either short-sighted or a purposefully deployed straw man.  Where, exactly, does she think all those people would be working if others weren't paying them to clean their house and mow their yard? Everyone living in a tiny house solves this problem how?  She never fleshes out her idea that larger houses somehow come at the expense of poor people, but merely lobs it out there as if it's an obvious truth.  It also completely ignores the fact that all of the amenities that admittedly left urban areas during the white flight of the 20th century are now coming back as the tax base has returned.  The displacement of the poor folks by wealthy urban youth moving back to the city seems lost on her as well.  

There are some other eyebrow-raising comments in the article, such as the claim that private playgrounds and pools are being built with taxpayer money.  I'm sure some developer managed to pull off such a shenanigan at some point, but generally such a thing would come under rather quick scrutiny.   

I do agree that the McMansions that many Americans (especially Texans it seems) continue to overpay for are not necessarily a good thing, but claiming that folks living in 2400 sf (as if that's even big!) homes is the reason we have poverty is some serious socialist backwash that even a German like the author should have trouble swallowing.   I suspect her real beef is that the development of such homes in lieu of urban housing developments, and all the amenities that would need to be designed and built for a highly congested populace, takes money out of the back pocket of her fellow architects while simultaneously contributing to the further decline of the once lofty status of the profession.  She should rest easy, as all signs point to the further growth of inner cities, which means more small dwellings.  I suppose as more folks hat move into tiny apartments, the better things will be for everyone.

The other aspect at play here is probably regional bias.  As a European, she may view the idea of the majority of the populace living at a low-middle class standard, with tiny but efficient apartments, a worthwhile tradeoff for better standards of healthcare, lower crime, less poverty, etc.  That's certainly a proven workable solution, but it's also, for better or worse, decidedly unAmerican.  Perhaps our little experiment here is coming to a close, but I'm going to enjoy my giant house and the ridiculously large pickup truck that I only own at the expense of the poor while I can, and the rest of the world can bust the fire hydrant if they need to cool off in summer.  I'll be in my pool.  

Edited May 15, 2018 by Samson's Wig

[PRONG HORN 3161]

2 minutes ago, Rex Kramer said:

Yeah. Should just have some of your scat buddies video their own fertilization techniques. 

Is that a poop gif joke?  I'm proud to have started the poop gif apocalypse at the other place.  

[Guest]

1 minute ago, PRONG HORN said:

Is that a poop gif joke?  I'm proud to have started the poop gif apocalypse at the other place.  

You should be. You’re a goddamned national hero. 

[elfenix 34339]

this story doesn't at all touch on something that's much more dear to the average houstonian: flooding.  a prof down at a&m galveston estimated that in the houston area, each additional square meter (that's about 10 square feet) of pavement costs about $4,000 in downstream flooding loss..  so that big new development up in cypress with the $485,000 4300 sq ft home, sitting on a 2700 sq foot slab, with another 1500 sq ft of concrete for garage and driveway, and another 1000 sq ft of concrete road right in front of it, adds two million dollars in downstream flood loss.  just for the one damn home!  why the fuck are the rest of us subsidizing that?

Edited May 15, 2018 by elfenix
i really hate this editor let me work with the goddamn tags!

[Sbbruin 21898]

Most of the homes in our neighborhood were built in the '20's and 30's.  Most had original footprints of between 1,200 and 1,500 sf, but with good sized yards.  Many - including ours- had additions added in later years.  A lot didn't though, and today people consider those 1,300 sf houses to nearly qualify as a Tiny Home.  My wife is eager for us to move into somethign larger, but I won't.  We have plenty of room for the 4 of us.  The number of times we have a guest spend the night is maybe once per year.  With the savings of not moving, I can put them up in the Ritz for a month every year.

[wood 11287]

2 hours ago, Samson's Wig said:

The flaw in this woman's thinking can be summed up in her own words.

It is not a zero-sum game, and presenting it as such is either short-sighted or a purposefully deployed straw man. 

Or she's just stupid.

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

Quality over quantity all day should be the guide 

[NeverMarryAStripper 21947]

I was born Houston. Our flooding problem would go away if we kicked out all you immigrants and built a wall.

[Ldogg53 514]

Houses are larger but their construction is like shit or worse.  Stick-framing and drywall is soooo cheap

Please explain how the stick framing and drywall of today is so much worse than that of the 40s/50s/60s.

Also, the 1912 built Victorian I once owned was also stick built, but had paper over lathe for the walls. Believe it was likely a kit house from that era. Would also like to hear why that was better than what’s built today.

[bschoolprof 6273]

I made it halfway through the article and had to quit.  To think that woman is a "scholar" in anything is truly frightening.  

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

1 hour ago, Ldogg53 said:

Please explain how the stick framing and drywall of today is so much worse than that of the 40s/50s/60s.

Also, the 1912 built Victorian I once owned was also stick built, but had paper over lathe for the walls. Believe it was likely a kit house from that era. Would also like to hear why that was better than what’s built today.

Framing lumber sucks today, that's for sure.

[Anastasis 23487]

I stopped reading when she demonstrated intellectual dishonesty with statistics in the 4th paragraph. 

[butthurt 1531]

1 hour ago, Ldogg53 said:

Please explain how the stick framing and drywall of today is so much worse than that of the 40s/50s/60s.

Also, the 1912 built Victorian I once owned was also stick built, but had paper over lathe for the walls. Believe it was likely a kit house from that era. Would also like to hear why that was better than what’s built today.

It's not. Far better codes for wind storm and etc, along with more fire/rot/mold resistant materials used, make todays home more structurally sound. Not to mention more energy efficient.

[Gil Bang 26050]

1 minute ago, butthurt said:

It's not. Far better codes for wind storm and etc, along with more fire/rot/mold resistant materials used, make todays home more structurally sound. Not to mention more energy efficient.

Yep.  New homes are better, just like new cars are better. 

It's fine to be nostalgic for old shit, I get that way too.  But it's just stupid to think that the average old  home is better than the average new home. 

[PHLaggie 110]

Sun belt cities that got their growth spurt after World  War II are all basically car-centric nondescript suburbia. 

It's not just the big houses, it's the urban form. If you have to go to the gym to get a workout-- but you drive to it, and park your big SUV in a "free" parking spot, then that's one of the ironies of modern American urban plans.

 

[fattyflattie 4638]

I think I'll keep my square footage. I've done the tiny house thing in Singapore and Perth. Also many hundreds of days offshore on a barge or DSV in a 8x10 room built of steel.  This falls into the move where you want category. I'd live in town if I could afford certain hoods, until then the dollar stretches sooo much further with that extra half hour commute. 

[PHLaggie 110]

If you do it, why wouldn't millions of others? Then, suddenly, that half- hour commute looks more like an hour commute due to traffic, and due to the fact that the sprawl has left any idea of a mass transit basically useless, so everyone drives everywhere-- even to pick up a gallon of milk that their "neighborhood" grocery store. Or you having to wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning to beat traffic. "Rush hour" has expanded in most sprawled out areas of America to be more than just an hour now.  And that's when you end up with the endless, soulless sprawl and the traffic jams and poor personal health as well as long-term unsustainable development patterns that we're saddling the next generation with.

I guess I made my choice. I gave up my car, moved to an urban area with lots of density that supports adequate mass transit that gets me most places. If I need a car for whatever, I now have fanciest or cheapest of Uber/Lyft, or I can even drive my own with a carshare service; need something for a weekend or longer, just rent one. At least I don't have to pay for car insurance, car maintenance, and car loan...not to mention the "free" parking.

Housing is certainly a free choice to be made. But government policy should be promoting more sustainable options that are better for the aggregate, rather than catering to the individual's choice. If people still want to sprawl out, they shouldn't be subsidized by ever expanding freeways and surface streets.

[butthurt 1531]

42 minutes ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

Framing lumber sucks today, that's for sure.

I disagree. While, for example, studs today are usually a fast growth pine or fur,  they're usually straighter and have far fewer knots, and add to that with better fasteners and codes, it surpasses older construction materials.

[Steel Shank 9432]

Bigger lot is far more important to me than a bigger house. I need my elbow room.

[Stunns38 3559]

Production style tract houses built after WWII generally suck. Built way too quickly for the GIs(had no choice), and there was a shitload of crappy prefab houses. Assembly line construction was very new and prone to problems. Craftsmanship went out the door during the time.

Lots of YouTube videos on remodeling old houses and the basic engineering mistakes made.

Old sidewalks from the 20s-30s still hold up well even when huge roots are right under so they have that.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[PHLaggie 110]

old growth lumber vs the new stuff...

https://www.abatron.com/marsha-2/

 

[fattyflattie 4638]

PHLaggie, it would cost me well over a million bucks to have what I have inside the loop. I can be downtown in under 30 minutes, and have a yard for my dog to play in. I'll trade the extra 20-25 minute commute to save the million bucks I don't have. 

I enjoy vehicles so I would have one or two anyhow.

*I realize the premise of this is to downsize/simplify your living space.  That works for some, I personally hated it.  I'm all for the folks who want to do it. Makes it easier for me to live further west of town, with even less people. 

[bolverk 29734]

For those of us who are current Austin homeowners and would be happy to downsize to a more central location, there's an obvious dilemma. I live alone in a 3/2 house (1500 sf) in South Austin between West Gate and Brodie about midway between Davis and Wm Cannon. My mortgage, homeowners insurance, and property taxes currently cost me about $1250 per month (though the property taxes keep rising).

There is absolutely zero "product" on the market that I could own to get a little closer to downtown and have any semblance of a backyard or any sort of outdoor space. As a matter of fact, in a lot of those old apartment complexes from the 1960s off Manchaca north of Ben White that have been fixed up and turned into condos, a one-bedroom would cost more than what I'm living in now. Hell, even a two-bedroom apartment in my neighborhood would cost more.

As a rational person, I understand that where I live is an extremely inefficient use of space. But, also, as a rational person, why would I give this up? I have a very easy commute to my downtown workplace and have even taken to riding the bus to save on gas, get exercise, and preserve my sanity. It's awesome.

Give me a tangible financial incentive to downsize and I'd be happy to take it (after my 12-yo, 90-pound mutt who actually uses the backyard passes).

[PHLaggie 110]

My house in Philly is 2400 sq ft; it's not small. I just don't have a huge backyard and I have no frontyard (my primary private outdoor spaces are my tiny backyard which is nonetheless nicely maintained with two fruit trees and some greenery; and my roofdeck with awesome views of the city all around); I don't live in a highrise, and it didn't cost me a whole lot compared to houses in the suburbs; nicer suburbs here with "good" school districts command higher housing prices and higher real estate taxes. I guess it's a different dynamic in a 300+ year old city/metro area compared to a still-growing sunbelt area like Houston or Dallas.

What I give up in "elbow room", I make up for a walkable commute (or a cheap and quick transit ride) and no hassles with buying/storing/maintaining a private car. Eventually I may move to an old-school suburb with transit access so that even though I would have a car I wouldn't need to use it much.  The predominant urban architecture of Philly is a rowhouse, which also saves on utility  bills and since mine is a new construction house it is well-sealed anyways.  On the plus side, the symphony, theater, movies, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, parks...all are within a short walk or subway ride or taxi/uber ride away.

It was very hard to give up the car the first time I moved here. But for me, the tradeoff has been okay. And I certainly feel I've reduced my environmental footprint a whole lot compared to my time living in Houston and Dallas areas earlier.  And looking at housing prices in nicer areas of Texas metros...they're catching up to Philly area for sure, may be even comparable to Boston area? It's shocking. I guess you can still buy a nice big house for only $200k but you will be out in the exurbs somewhere in brand new subdivisions. More ranches paved over...

 

Edited May 16, 2018 by PHLaggie

[bolverk 29734]

3 minutes ago, PHLaggie said:

My house in Philly is 2400 sq ft; it's not small. I just don't have a huge backyard and I have no frontyard; I don't live in a highrise, and it didn't cost me a whole lot compared to houses in the suburbs; nicer suburbs here with "good" school districts command higher housing prices and higher real estate taxes. I guess it's a different dynamic in a 300+ year old city/metro area compared to a still-growing sunbelt area like Houston or Dallas.

What I give up in "elbow room", I make up for a walkable commute (or a cheap and quick transit ride) and no hassles with buying/storing/maintaining a private car. Eventually I may move to an old-school suburb with transit access so that even though I would have a car I wouldn't need to use it much.  The predominant urban architecture of Philly is a rowhouse, which also saves on utility  bills and since mine is a new construction house it is well-sealed anyways.

 

Within urban planning and architecture, there is the notion of the "missing middle", especially in Sun Belt cities which were fast-growing after WWII. From the 1950s to the present, there have only been two real models for housing: tract homes (whether modest or McMansion) or apartment complexes. More recently, we're developing high-rise condo or apartment towers. But there still remains an untapped demand for something in-between that I think a lot of us are actually seeking that would be similar to the brownstone/rowhouse model or even something a little more modest.

[PHLaggie 110]

1 minute ago, bolverk said:

Within urban planning and architecture, there is the notion of the "missing middle", especially in Sun Belt cities which were fast-growing after WWII. From the 1950s to the present, there have only been two real models for housing: tract homes (whether modest or McMansion) or apartment complexes. More recently, we're developing high-rise condo or apartment towers. But there still remains an untapped demand for something in-between that I think a lot of us are actually seeking that would be similar to the brownstone/rowhouse model or even something a little more modest.

that's great. The urban infill has a lot of opportunity for that sort of development. Even if it's not brownstone or truly rowhouse, perhaps it is the New Urbanist concepts... those are doing very well in the nicer parts of Dallas north of downtown.  I don't know the price points for those-- I'm sure they're pricey compared to the market, but obviously they are targeted toward a different audience...and may be due to all the in-migration to Texas cities from West and East Coast/Snow Belt areas, that demand is there and may be growing.

New Urbanist with hidden parking garage, and a mix of uses is a nice, medium density infill. More should be encouraged.

And any new train lines should have stations that are automatically zoned for Transit Oriented Development... high density, mixed use, fully leveraging that shiny new train line. Mockingbird Station north of downtown Dallas is one such area but more should have been built by now.  In Austin, the solitary train line should have more density built right next to its train stations, if at all possible.

[freyguy 4305]

From Germany...to Penn State...hmm

[Guest]

5 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

I was born Houston. Our flooding problem would go away if we kicked out all you immigrants and built a wall.

or just build a gaint dome...

[bolverk 29734]

29 minutes ago, PHLaggie said:

that's great. The urban infill has a lot of opportunity for that sort of development. Even if it's not brownstone or truly rowhouse, perhaps it is the New Urbanist concepts... those are doing very well in the nicer parts of Dallas north of downtown.  I don't know the price points for those-- I'm sure they're pricey compared to the market, but obviously they are targeted toward a different audience...and may be due to all the in-migration to Texas cities from West and East Coast/Snow Belt areas, that demand is there and may be growing.

New Urbanist with hidden parking garage, and a mix of uses is a nice, medium density infill. More should be encouraged.

And any new train lines should have stations that are automatically zoned for Transit Oriented Development... high density, mixed use, fully leveraging that shiny new train line. Mockingbird Station north of downtown Dallas is one such area but more should have been built by now.  In Austin, the solitary train line should have more density built right next to its train stations, if at all possible.

3

One challenge we have in Texas is our over-reliance on property taxes to get shit funded, which makes the price of the "dirt" on which "improvements" are built outrageous. You should probably move this to the unpopular thread, but I think that an income tax to offset property taxes would greatly improve our situation.

Right now, I live on 0.16 acres in a ticky-tacky, late-1970s subdivision,  and my lot price is appraised at $100,000, which is insane. Of course, most of the taxes go to the Austin school district. Unfortunately, about 1/3 of my school tax dollars leave the district to support "property poor" districts (aka the Robin Hood plan) around the state.

At the same time, school district boundaries in Texas are rather arbitrary and don't align with actual "wealth". As an example, I grew up in a mid-sized town in the oil patch (4A) school, but the district boundaries didn't even reach with the city limits. Two other more rural 2A schools have the actual oil fields in their districts, so they receive all the benefits of free money flowing from the ground. The result is they can hire better teachers and offer subsidized housing (the school districts actually have constructed homes for teachers), which reinforces the flow of transfer students to property "rich" districts.

The whole system is insane.

It seems to me that a more equitable tax structure that was focused on spreading the wealth via income versus property ownership could alleviate some of our issues regarding rising home prices. 

Edit: Or just have statewide property tax (which is unconstitutional in Texas) that is devoted strictly to education and is shared equitably based solely on enrollment counts.

Edited May 16, 2018 by bolverk

[Anastasis 23487]

I am not a huge fan of state income tax, but our property tax system is fundamentally unamerican. 

[Anastasis 23487]

Can I ask how many kids you got PHL and you age range? 

I got three, and both me and my wife work from home. Yeah, I'll take my half acre with a small soccer field on the side of the house for the kids, a good school district, mature oaks, and room to spare in the suburbs 10 minutes from the marina for the time being. There is definitely pros/cons relative to downtown living, but at this moment in my life, it's working out just fine. 

When I was married with no kids, we loved being central.  Shit, we would have probably stayed there but the remodel to add the necessary space for our family was pricing out almost as much as just buying another house, and the lot constraints were challenging. And there were no real financially viable options that met our needs in central Austin. 

Different strokes for different folks with different requirements and in different stages of life.     

[mulletpelini 5216]

will move into 3500 sf next month and will think of all of you while I do it.

[PHLaggie 110]

21 minutes ago, bolverk said:

One challenge we have in Texas is our over-reliance on property taxes to get shit funded, which makes the price of the "dirt" on which "improvements" are built outrageous. You should probably move this to the unpopular thread, but I think that an income tax to offset property taxes would greatly improve our situation.

Right now, I live on 0.16 acres in a ticky-tacky, late-1970s subdivision,  and my lot price is appraised at $100,000, which is insane. Of course, most of the taxes go to the Austin school district. Unfortunately, about 1/3 of my school tax dollars leave the district to support "property poor" districts (aka the Robin Hood plan) around the state.

At the same time, school district boundaries in Texas are rather arbitrary and don't align with actual "wealth". As an example, I grew up in a mid-sized town in the oil patch (4A) school, but the district boundaries didn't even reach with the city limits. Two other more rural 2A schools have the actual oil fields in their districts, so they receive all the benefits of free money flowing from the ground. The result is they can hire better teachers and offer subsidized housing (the school districts actually have constructed homes for teachers), which reinforces the flow of transfer students to property "rich" districts.

The whole system is insane.

It seems to me that a more equitable tax structure that was focused on spreading the wealth via income versus property ownership could alleviate some of our issues regarding rising home prices. 

Edit: Or just have statewide property tax (which is unconstitutional in Texas) that is devoted strictly to education and is shared equitably based solely on enrollment counts.

everyone hates property taxes in PA... especially the middle part of the state that is emptying out of young folks (unfortunately). Basically, if you're approaching retirement and have no kids or grandkids in school and your house is paid off, then continuing to pay property taxes feels like rent that never stops on a property that you own. The old folks-- the ones who always vote in droves-- finally are having their voices heard in Harrisburg. But Philly has carve outs against anything that happens in the rest of the state...partly because Philly's school district is saddled with about $1 billion in unfunded liabilities and therefore must keep the tax revenue spigot flowing...

 

Texas has far better school funding, even if it's not the most ideal. I went to a middling school district west of Houston and even though we lived within the city limits it wasn't the HISD but a different one. Pretty much everywhere in America, property taxes are what pays for public schools, and we as a country idealize the public school system as a good that we should want... though charters, parochials, and privates are huge here in Philly (primarily because Philly schools are crazy messed up save for a few neighborhood and magnet schools).

I agree with you that there should be a statewide property tax solely to fund public schools-- then the funding formula will be even, and everyone pays the same rate for that one line item.  Then if your town wants shiny new cop cars or paid fire dept and not a volunteer one then you pay extra. A statewide tax would also de-incentivize continuous self-segregation... people will still buy themselves into a richer neighborhood and richer cohort, I suppose. But schools would get equal funding per capita. 

Here's an overview of the politics of eliminating property taxes. It's not a good way to go, IMO. One of the reasons Texas is booming is because it has no income tax...companies and people love it!

https://www.ydr.com/story/news/2018/04/13/eliminating-pa-property-taxes-sounds-great-but-heres-what-gop-ad-dont-tell-you-you-could-pay/506289002/

 

[PHLaggie 110]

22 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Can I ask how many kids you got PHL and you age range? 

I got three, and both me and my wife work from home. Yeah, I'll take my half acre with a small soccer field on the side of the house for the kids, a good school district, mature oaks, and room to spare in the suburbs 10 minutes from the marina for the time being. There is definitely pros/cons relative to downtown living, but at this moment in my life, it's working out just fine. 

When I was married with no kids, we loved being central.  Shit, we would have probably stayed there but the remodel to add the necessary space for our family was pricing out almost as much as just buying another house, and the lot constraints were challenging. And there were no real financially viable options that met our needs in central Austin. 

Different strokes for different folks with different requirements and in different stages of life.     

I hear you. I'm still single and have no kids to worry about. My priorities would change pronto if I had school-age kid or two and my catchement school in town wasn't up to snuff... which, currently, it isn't. My options would then be a charter school of my choice (some are decent, many are nasty...worse than regular public schools, and got the charter management as a political payoff in the pay-to-play shady local politics), or a decent private school, or move to a nearby suburb...my preference would be one of the per-war towns dotting this whole area because those towns all have some of the same urban amenities but are far more genteel obviously, and most have direct train connection to downtown.

Different strokes for different folks is right.

I was just fundamentally against the unlimited (no second thought given) sprawl of post-war American cities... there are vast tracts of really good farm and orchard land here to in Philly area that have given way to new subdivisions far out into the exurbs...that's just not me, and after reading enough about these issues, I doubt it would ever go back to that lifestyle.

[PHLaggie 110]

Quote

 

"Because densely populated urban centers concentrate human activity, we think of them as pollution crisis zones. Calculated by the square foot, New York City generates more greenhouse gases, uses more energy, and produces more solid waste than most other American regions of comparable size. On a map depicting negative environmental impacts in relation to surface area, therefore, Manhattan would look like an intense hot spot, surrounded, at varying distances, by belts of deepening green.

If you plotted the same negative impacts by resident or by household, however, the color scheme would be reversed. My little town has about four thousand residents, spread over 38.7 thickly wooded square miles, and there are many places within our town limits from which no sign of settlement is visible in any direction. But if you moved eight million people like us, along with our dwellings and possessions and current rates of energy use, into a space the size of New York City, our profligacy would be impossible to miss, because you’d have to stack our houses and cars and garages and lawn tractors and swimming pools and septic tanks higher than skyscrapers. (Conversely, if you made all eight million New Yorkers live at the density of my town, they would require a space equivalent to the land area of the six New England states plus Delaware and New Jersey.) Spreading people out increases the damage they do to the environment, while making the problems harder to see and to address."

 

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/10/18/green-manhattan

(a slightly dated article by now; but it generated a lot of thinking when it was first published. it certainly got me thinking.  i had only recently moved to Dallas back then, from Houston, for a job).

[52-80 19270]

8 hours ago, Ldogg53 said:

Please explain how the stick framing and drywall of today is so much worse than that of the 40s/50s/60s.

Also, the 1912 built Victorian I once owned was also stick built, but had paper over lathe for the walls. Believe it was likely a kit house from that era. Would also like to hear why that was better than what’s built today.

It's tangential to the point of the thread.  But my comparison is not contemporary US houses vs post-WW2 US houses, but vs standards referenced to the author's background - Germany, where its primarily masonry construction.  Beyond the structural frame, the standard is superior throughout DE houses with solid doors, better windows, and full hardwood flooring is a given, etc.    Obviously some of these are things that can be, and are fitted, to houses in the US.  For the frame, I understand why they're constructed this way (speed, cost, transportation and abundance of lumber).  My point being that a typical unit from housing stock there will have an appreciable upgrade in quality that you can feel, every day.

Obviously, it comes with a trade-off of size.  

[AUinHsv 579]

12 hours ago, Sbbruin said:

Most of the homes in our neighborhood were built in the '20's and 30's.  Most had original footprints of between 1,200 and 1,500 sf, but with good sized yards.  Many - including ours- had additions added in later years.  A lot didn't though, and today people consider those 1,300 sf houses to nearly qualify as a Tiny Home.  My wife is eager for us to move into somethign larger, but I won't.  We have plenty of room for the 4 of us.  The number of times we have a guest spend the night is maybe once per year.  With the savings of not moving, I can put them up in the Ritz for a month every year.

Half of Surly is now pm'ing you with their vacation plans

Edited May 16, 2018 by AUinHsv

[Onboard 2.0 9083]

11 hours ago, butthurt said:

I disagree. While, for example, studs today are usually a fast growth pine or fur,  they're usually straighter and have far fewer knots, and add to that with better fasteners and codes, it surpasses older construction materials.

No I disagree, framing lumber is most definitely inferior to older framing lumber.  

Trees are harvested sooner, they're not old growth.  Faster growing weaker trees,  growth rings are less dense.  Less tree resin making them more susceptible to moisture, rot and insect invasion.  We harvest trees sooner which means less strength, durability, and resin content.

No knots ? Because they strip branches from trees as they grow.

Straighter?  Most lumber hacks have more and more returned studs because they're not straight.  Try finding a straight 10' long 2 x 4 or even a 2 x 6 stud today.  I hear complaints from the older framers on every job site.

I've seen at least 2 reductions in the allowable lengths of floor joist, roof rafter and ceiling joist spans in my career. That's a direct result of inferior, weaker lumber.

Better building codes ?  Sure, but that has nothing to do with the quality of lumber, and more to do with technology and better building practices.

The rise of pre engineered floor joists is a direct result of weaker wood.

Edited May 16, 2018 by Onboard 2.0

[Thatguy 8891]

  

11 hours ago, PHLaggie said:

If you do it, why wouldn't millions of others? Then, suddenly, that half- hour commute looks more like an hour commute due to traffic, and due to the fact that the sprawl has left any idea of a mass transit basically useless, so everyone drives everywhere-- even to pick up a gallon of milk that their "neighborhood" grocery store. Or you having to wake up at some ungodly hour in the morning to beat traffic. "Rush hour" has expanded in most sprawled out areas of America to be more than just an hour now.  And that's when you end up with the endless, soulless sprawl and the traffic jams and poor personal health as well as long-term unsustainable development patterns that we're saddling the next generation with.

I guess I made my choice. I gave up my car, moved to an urban area with lots of density that supports adequate mass transit that gets me most places. If I need a car for whatever, I now have fanciest or cheapest of Uber/Lyft, or I can even drive my own with a carshare service; need something for a weekend or longer, just rent one. At least I don't have to pay for car insurance, car maintenance, and car loan...not to mention the "free" parking.

Housing is certainly a free choice to be made. But government policy should be promoting more sustainable options that are better for the aggregate, rather than catering to the individual's choice. If people still want to sprawl out, they shouldn't be subsidized by ever expanding freeways and surface streets.

Before moving to LA we had a nice sized stucco house on a culdesac on a golf course. We had to rid ourselves of half our stuff, and the commute(although closer) got worse. My life loved it because I made sure her world was small. All her needs were within 5-10 mins, the school was a few hundred yards away, and she could get to the beach in 20 mins. For me it was an absolute nightmare of losing all the hours on workdays because I was sitting in traffic. Eventually we decided it wasn't worth it and came back to Texas(though she is a west coaster). When we did we realized we didn't need a big home, and opted for a more modest home in a good neighborhood.

  

[NotActuallyALonghorn 4979]

2 hours ago, Onboard 2.0 said:

No I disagree, framing lumber is most definitely inferior to older framing lumber.  

Trees are harvested sooner, they're not old growth.  Faster growing weaker trees,  growth rings are less dense.  Less tree resin making them more susceptible to moisture, rot and insect invasion.  We harvest trees sooner which means less strength, durability, and resin content.

No knots ? Because they strip branches from trees as they grow.

Straighter?  Most lumber hacks have more and more returned studs because they're not straight.  Try finding a straight 10' long 2 x 4 or even a 2 x 6 stud today.  I hear complaints from the older framers on every job site.

I've seen at least 2 reductions in the allowable lengths of floor joist, roof rafter and ceiling joist spans in my career. That's a direct result of inferior, weaker lumber.

Better building codes ?  Sure, but that has nothing to do with the quality of lumber, and more to do with technology and better building practices.

The rise of pre engineered floor joists is a direct result of weaker wood.

Specific gravity in pine trees has a genetic component and is not simply a result of how fast a tree grows. The supertree growers working to engineer better trees are looking at factors like that now and not simply growth rate these days. Still, it's slow research because it takes a while for the trees to produce seeds and move on to the next generation. It takes even longer still because you may not be able to tell how good a tree will be for producing lumber just because it is old enough to produce seeds.

As far as branches, they aren't stripped off. That would be way too labor intensive. They fall off on their own due to natural pruning in even aged stands.

But you are right about old growth being better. It is denser and has fewer knots because the trees are older and bigger. Smaller plantation grown trees have more knots because the wood where branches have fallen off hasn't had as much time to put on growth as the old growth trees had. Go look at a 100 year old house that has exposed lumber and you will see nice tight grain with few exposed knots. Nothing at all like you would see today.

Unfortunately, we don't really have any old growth forests left we can harvest and we need lots of lumber still, so we have to make do with sustainably grown timber that was planted specifically for making studs.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

My neighborhood in Houston was built in the mid to late 50s.  All ranch style homes from 2,000 to 3,500 square feet.  Most of the old houses have been torn down and rebuilt.  When you do that, financially it only makes sense to make it two stories for the extra SF.  The dirt is so expensive, to make money on the re-sale some day it only works if you have 4,000 SF or more.

[Smax 3800]

12 hours ago, PHLaggie said:

My house in Philly is 2400 sq ft; it's not small. I just don't have a huge backyard and I have no frontyard (my primary private outdoor spaces are my tiny backyard which is nonetheless nicely maintained with two fruit trees and some greenery; and my roofdeck with awesome views of the city all around); I don't live in a highrise, and it didn't cost me a whole lot compared to houses in the suburbs; nicer suburbs here with "good" school districts command higher housing prices and higher real estate taxes. I guess it's a different dynamic in a 300+ year old city/metro area compared to a still-growing sunbelt area like Houston or Dallas.

What I give up in "elbow room", I make up for a walkable commute (or a cheap and quick transit ride) and no hassles with buying/storing/maintaining a private car. Eventually I may move to an old-school suburb with transit access so that even though I would have a car I wouldn't need to use it much.  The predominant urban architecture of Philly is a rowhouse, which also saves on utility  bills and since mine is a new construction house it is well-sealed anyways.  On the plus side, the symphony, theater, movies, grocery stores, restaurants, bars, parks...all are within a short walk or subway ride or taxi/uber ride away.

It was very hard to give up the car the first time I moved here. But for me, the tradeoff has been okay. And I certainly feel I've reduced my environmental footprint a whole lot compared to my time living in Houston and Dallas areas earlier.  And looking at housing prices in nicer areas of Texas metros...they're catching up to Philly area for sure, may be even comparable to Boston area? It's shocking. I guess you can still buy a nice big house for only $200k but you will be out in the exurbs somewhere in brand new subdivisions. More ranches paved over...

 

 

 

You're up north, Texas no one really wants a walk able community for close to half the year, its too damn hot outside. I have zero desire to walk 5 blocks to the neighborhood grocery store and buy a few meals for my family of 4 and walk back in 95 degree weather