I’ve been watching the construction of a new house on my street for several months now.
It took the place of an adorable cottage that sat at the back of the plot so that most of the yard was in front. The new house seems to be as big as possible.
Watching its construction got me paying more attention to the size of other houses around and the ratio of house to outdoor space.
My wholly unscientific assessment is that newer houses, and many other houses that have undergone renovations, are as big as the plot on which they sit allows. I see a growing number of homes that are eliminating outdoor space in favor of a larger home.
According to census statistics, the average American household has been consistently shrinking.
In 1940 the reported average number of people per household was 3.7 and in 2022 that number was 2.5. The Census Bureau’s Characteristics of New Housing reports that the median size of new single-family homes is 20% bigger in 2022 than in 1990.
The percentage of new single-family homes sold in 2022 that exceed 2,400 square feet was 50% while in the early 2000s it was only 37%.
So our families are smaller, but our homes are bigger.
Some of the size may be explained by how we’re using our homes. Approximately 18% of people work from home now, more than triple the number in 2005.
While that may explain some of the increase in home size, it is still worrisome that houses are increasing in size so dramatically.
Houses are larger because in general people are spending more time at home and inside their homes.
We have been steadily moving toward a society where everything we need is in our home and if it’s not in our home, we can arrange to have it delivered to our home.
It was possible to have just about anything needed or wanted for daily living delivered to your home prior to 2020 (clothes, books, groceries, medication), but the COVID-19 pandemic made delivery of everything the norm.
The cost of living this way is our further dissociation from the natural world. In the process of expanding our homes and spending more time inside them, we have eliminated what little opportunity we had to engage and connect with nature by filling the outdoor space with more house.
So many plots now have no space to eat outside, play outside, and barely any space for a plant, let alone a garden. There’s no room to lie and look up at the clouds or between the blades of grass at all the activity in and on the soil.
When we separate ourselves from the natural world, we lose our understanding of and connection to all that enables us to live. Therefore, we forget our role in protecting the natural world and we jeopardize the sustainability of the very things that allowed us to live as we do.
A study of 12,000 Americans and their connection to nature and the outdoors in 2015-2016 by Dr. Stephen Kellert and DJ Case & Associates concluded that “connection to nature is not a dispensable amenity but, rather, is essential to the quality of life, health, social well-being, prosperity, and productivity of all Americans.”
It is not just experiences that take place outdoors but connecting to nature and appreciating and understanding its wonder. That is what leads to protecting it.
The easiest place to connect with nature is outside your door, but only if there is any nature left outside your door.
The bigger house may seem critical, but the few extra feet inside are at the cost of priceless outdoor space. Outside you can sit and feel the sun warm your bones, watch the birds fly, see the bees drinking nectar and enjoy watching and hearing children play.
None of that can be delivered to your door if there’s no natural space outside your door.