Living well. Closet space: the final frontier

Unfortunately this blog doesn't allow links, but head on over to the "World in the Balance" pages at the PBS website. There's a section on Peter Wenzel's photographs of people around the world sitting outside of their houses with all of their possessions around them. His book is called Material World. In the photos, most people seem to own very little. The two families with the most stuff are, unsurprisingly, the Americans and the Japanese, although the Japanese cram it all into a much smaller house.

Culturally, Americans prefer things to people, and especially to their families. That's what the evidence suggests when you compare the American economy to Europe's. In France, workers are actually more productive per hour than Americans, but work many fewer hours. We don't, as a society, value time with family as much as we do possessions.

Marcus, I did a search on on your claim that French workers are more productive than Americans and found a number of hits that refute that. An example from CBS News (9/3/07): "Each U.S. worker produces $63,885 of wealth per year, more than their counterparts in all other countries, the International Labor Organization said in its report. Ireland comes in second at $55,986, ahead of Luxembourg, $55,641; Belgium, $55,235; and France, $54,609." I disagree with your opinion that we value things more than people, that's not what I see. Is this what you experience in your life? When I visit cousins in Europe their lives and values are similar to ours.

I think a lot of the pressure to buy real estate IS socially created. Look at all the comments on this blog, claiming that its impossible to have a family in a rental, and overlooking that most of the world, and much of Boston's history, that was the norm.

I actually think its good for society for this to be a country of homeowners, and for most people the forced savings aspect of home ownership makes it one of the average person's best investments (though home equity loans have taken a lot of this justification away). But rather than a rational object, home ownership has become a "must have" that people don't even question - note the way that "home" and "house" have gradually been conflated into one word.

That peer pressure often leads the economically unsophisticated into making poor choices - like buying a "home" now, or in the last 5 years. Its been simply amazing to me how much time I spent over those last 5 years trying to convince otherwise intelligent people not to buy houses - even the ones that listened had to be reassured every 6 months. Expectations blew out rationality.

Marcus, I did a search on on your claim that French workers are more productive than Americans and found a number of hits that refute that.

No, you didn't. You found a number per year. French workers are more productive per hour, but work fewer hours. One of the reasons is that they, like other Europeans, spend much more time on vacation. They sacrifice income--"stuff"-- for free time with their families. We prefer things, instead, for which the evidence is not my "life experience," but the data about our tradeoffs between money and leisure.

Marcus, that is not necessarily what Americans, as individuals, value, even if it is what America, as a culture, values. American jobs simply do not offer 5-6 weeks of vacation. You can find jobs with 37.5 hours a week, but aside from teachers, you're not going to find them with 5-6 weeks of vacation. The Europeans don't sacrifice income for vacation... it's just part of their jobs.

Not to beat a dead horse, but as with all things, it really depends on how you want to look at the data.

Here is is presented another way, as explained below:

"This is a list of countries of the world sorted by their Gross Domestic Product (PPP converted) per hour worked. This is the value of all final goods and services produced within a nation in a given year, divided by the total annual hours worked. The GDP (PPP) per hour worked is a measure of the productivity of a country."

Rank Country GDP per hour 2007
1 Norway 37.44
2 United States 35.90
3 Luxembourg 35.72
4 France 35.09
5 Belgium 34.39
6 The Netherlands 32.71
7 Trinidad and Tobago 31.76
8 Austria 31.59
9 United Kingdom 31.27
10 Denmark 30.73

There is no question that on average our homes are too big. Most people live in only a few rooms of their house and most kids do not need supersized rooms with their own bathrooms. What we really need are smaller homes with better and more innovatively designed public spaces (and less large "private spaces").

bv, head over to the OECD stat extracts page. The US is behind France. And Luxembourg, Norway, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

rws, last I heard, this was a democracy. If France has laws mandating more vacation time than we get, whose fault is that? Some Americans may prefer more free time, but not enough of them, unfortunately.

It's always fascinating to look back at residential architectural history, and see what people expected to find in new houses in each era. In the 1920s everyone just had to have a sun room. In the '70s, it was a basement bar or rec room. Today size tops the list. Three-car garages, walk-in closets, great rooms the size of a small Starbucks.

A while back, someone posted in the comments here that a general guideline is to have 400-500sf per person living in the house. I've been thinking about that a lot actually, since we bought a house that's averaged sized for the boston 'burbs. It's just the two of us and 1500sf is just fine for us. It's probably more than we need, since we don't even use all the rooms. It's been a good learning experience, since this is our first home. We're learning that the big "master suite" ideal isn't all it's cracked up to be since we spend most of our time in the kitchen and/or living room. I'd gladly reduce the size of the bedrooms to increase the "common" space. Little things you notice here and there that we'll keep in mind when we buy our next hojme down the line.

Marcus - guess there are just different ways to look at the numbers. No worries, though, I get the point you wish were true.

I don't know if the thread is dead, but there's an interesting series of books, websites, plans and other materials by architect Susan Saranka called "The Not So Big House." She argues for smaller, better planned houses, spending less money on size and more on built-ins, trimwork, detail, and functionality. No gigundo master suites; no kitchens the size of garages; but rather, lots of storage and cupboards, plus design tricks like partially opening each room to its neighbor to enhance the feeling of spaciousness. I don't know if I agree with every one of her prescriptions, but I do find her viewpoint interesting.

No worries, bv, even the numbers you cut and pasted without references from Wikipedia reinforce my point. I guess you can't really argue that the French work longer hours than Americans, what with the actual data and all, so the typical snip and snipe will have to do.

"I guess you can't really argue that the French work longer hours than Americans"
Huh? Who tried to? French work far fewer hours. The spend most of the year striking (and probably getting paid while they strike)! You said they were more productive per hour. Wrong. About the same productivity, plus or minus.

Lets see, you hate suburbs, big houses, new windows, Scott etc. You find any reason to tell us all how stupid we all are. Any data you don't like you just discount while the data you like is "real". That is what is called cherry-picking data. Typical venom from you will have to do in the absence of anything else.

While I enjoy Saranka's Not So Big books, I'd love to see one focussed on renovating an existing home without spending a fortune.

I moved from a larger home with enormous yard - my dream home - to a small Cape (1350 sf for my family of 4). We are much happier in the smaller, well-designed house. Once I let go of the ego factor, I found it required less time to clean, less time to maintain, less time to tend the yard which leaves more time to play with the kids.

Someone else published Marcus on BV, so it only seems fair that BV should get to respond. But that's all, you two! NOW, quit the personal sniping!

HollyP, Susanka's books kind of assume that you'll be able to afford all this marvelous trimwork and built-in storage with the money you save by purchasing a smaller house. In her rough estimate, a well-outfitted, not-so-small house costs 1/3 more than a standard house of the same size. Unfortunately, that arithmetic doesn't work around here, where you're already overpaying for your "cottage."

The current (June 2009) Dwell magazine is all about small houses:
"Think Smaller: Homes Under 1000 Sq Feet"

Good magazine. I like it.