The End of McMansions?

Time Magazine had an interesting piece on how the era of the McMansions, houses that top out at over 3,000 square feet. It seems that "from 1950 to 2004, the average size of an American home jumped from from 983 square feet to 2,349 square feet."  Now this number is finally dropping. In 2010, only 9% of people are looking for a house over 3,000 square feet.

That reminds me of a fairly lively discussion I had with a gentleman at a downtown planning meeting.  When the consultant asked about downtown residential, this gentleman's recommendation was to tear down several of the smaller homes surrounding our downtown and build a 3,200 square foot home in their place. Apparently, his wife would like to live downtown but he wants a lot of "living space" and this was the solution he came up with.

I'm always surprised that some plans actually start this way. No sense of scale, history or appropriateness--trying to use solution from somewhere else to solve problems downtown.