On Sun, 2008-06-22 at 00:19 -0600, Corey Edwards wrote: > On Sat, 2008-06-21 at 22:04 -0600, Josh Coates wrote: > > >McMansions are built because people want them; > > > > ditto to stuart jansen's brilliant statement - (plus a "duh." added by me, > > directed towards andy. ;-) > > There's quite a difference between a sweat shop and a McMansion, and I > don't think the analogy holds. Anyone who can afford a house of that > scale certainly has other options. They may not be ones that fit into > their idea of style or luxury, but the choice is there.
I know it's hard to remember at this point, but I'm actually the one that kicked off the whole McMansion discussion when I pointed out that a lot of Americans are making disgusting, self-indulgent decisions. I think it's disgusting that in so many families in Utah, when Junior graduates from high school he gets a Mustang as a gift instead of working for it. Apparently no one cared enough to disagree with me. On the topic of housing, however, there was a strong counter argument: "The market has swung too far, even those who don't want them are being forced to buy too large homes on too small land." Why? Wouldn't the market correct itself? As someone pointed out, developers make more money by building more home on less land. As someone who wants less home on more land, I have to admit there is some truth to this argument. Maybe down in Spanish Fork decent homes are still being built, but I live in Davis county and up here most new homes are the type I dislike. I have other options. For now, I'm still renting. Eventually, perhaps, I'll move into a home 30 miles from work. Neither is a great option. Or maybe I'll get lucky and find a home that was built back when people had more sense, but there aren't many families in those homes now in hurry to sell. There's a limit to how often one can run back to the argument that "People do X so they must want X." Sometimes "People do X because they didn't have many other options." So yes, Americans in general are at fault. But so are developers. And city councils. When you get down to it, developers are doing nothing wrong. They're maximizing profit. Saying they're greedy isn't an insult, it's a statement of fact our economic system is built around. The role of the market is to moderate that greed. And when the market fails, the role of government is step in for the good of society. Obviously some people feel the system is currently malfunctioning and aren't happy about waiting for a market correction. /* PLUG: http://plug.org, #utah on irc.freenode.net Unsubscribe: http://plug.org/mailman/options/plug Don't fear the penguin. */
