McMansions

Kaid Benfield looks at recent trends in the housing sector and asks whether America's infatuation with the McMansion is over.

Nona Willis Aronowitz reports on a new survey indicating 60% of respondents would sacrifice a bigger house to live in a neighborhood that featured a mix of houses, stores, and businesses within an easy walk.

In Merced, California, students fill in the large homes chockablock with amenities and left vacant by a high foreclosure rate. Rents often go for under $300 a month.

Mukesh Ambani found himself the center of a lot of controversy with the 27-story residence he built last year in Mumbai, overlooking a sea of poverty. Vikas Bajaj reports that now that it is completed, the Ambani's hardly even use it.

With the help of Councilmember Paul Krekorian of the Los Angeles City Hall, Studio City residents developed an anti-mansionization ordinance called the "Residential Floor Area" to limit the size of residential construction on existing lots.

Steven Huff, who is chairman of a concrete company, is building a 13 bedroom, 14 bath home in Highlandville, Missouri out of his company's energy-efficient concrete. When built, it will be one of the largest homes in the U.S.

Americans have shunned the "McMansion" for smaller, more appropriately proportioned homes, a trend which has benefited from the economic recession.

Surveys show that those born between 1980 and the early 2000s want to live in an urban setting -- and not in a humongous house.

In the face of a recent report showing that sprawl was rapidly eating up developable land in New Jersey, developers have begun to ditch the McMansion in favor of taller and more dense projects.

Edward L. Glaeser says that the government policy of encouraging homeownership through tax breaks subsidizes Americans to buy bigger homes which waste energy.

New studies show that long commutes are significantly detrimental to people's happiness. So why choose the bigger house outside of town over the smaller house? Jonah Lehrer talks about the "weighting mistake" theory.

Builders John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods, hit hard by the downturn, is meeting consumer price points by creating compact home designs instead of the 4,700 sq. ft. homes that were their bread and butter.

Author Kurt Andersen's new book describes the last three decades as a period of wanton growth, from homes to waistlines. He sees the economic bust as a way to return sanity and size appropriateness.

A survey of architects shows that a very low percentage of Americans are still clamoring for McMansions, indicating what may be a broad shift to smaller homes.

American artist Mike Bouchet constructed a full-sized replica of a standard American suburban home to float outside the Venice Biennale art exhibition. Instead, the house sank, suggesting new meanings for the artwork.

A stalled and abandoned development along the Florida coast is being scouted by the Trust for Public Land as a possible site for "un-development" -- a return to its natural state as open space.

A new study from SMR Research Corporation reveals that people who live alone use 18% more energy than two-person households, and 30% more than three-person homes. McMansions are, or course, cited as big wasters.

Fewer teardowns and new home starts back up the perception that the age of the McMansion is coming to an end.

Amid complaints of over-sized houses, officials in Seattle are considering enacting tighter regulations on the size of single-family homes.

Despite the housing downturn, houses in excess of 20,000 square feet are still being built by the very wealthy — with no sign of a slowdown.