Joe Cortright criticizes reports linking high median new home sizes to a renewed demand for McMansions. The market for single-family homes, he argues, locks out buyers of modest means. Only the well-off are buying.
A piece for City Observatory takes issue with those who claim "that the 'death of the McMansion' has been highly exaggerated." [...] "A closer reading shows that the apparent surge in McMansions is actually a bit of a statistical mirage. These analysts have overlooked a key limitation of the reported data."
From the article: "It's actually the case that American homes are only getting bigger if one believes that people living in multi-family housing either aren't Americans or don't have homes. [...] The only reason these big houses have increased as a share of total new housing is because the market for affordable, smaller single family homes has done even worse."
After the recession, the single-family market never recovered. Instead, "multi-family housing now makes up 40 percent of new home starts, up from 20 percent a decade ago. If we recalculated the median new home size including both multi- and single-family homes, the increase in the McMansion share would look much smaller." Additional data demonstrates that even among the rich, ownership of large homes is trending downward.
FULL STORY: Misleading Medians & the McMansion Mirage
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Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
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The Five Most-Changed American Cities
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San Diego Adopts First Mobility Master Plan
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Op-Ed: Why an Effective Passenger Rail Network Needs Government Involvement
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions