Harvard Soph Sees Upside of Bubble Bursting
Maybe those Harvard kids are kinda smart. We opened this editorial by sophomore Charles Drummond expecting a chuckle and nothing more. Turned out, the guy has a point, seeing the silver lining of a real estate market correction: There is another bubble that I hope will burst very soon—the ugly housing bubble. If you’ve ever…
Maybe those Harvard kids are kinda smart. We opened this editorial by sophomore Charles Drummond expecting a chuckle and nothing more. Turned out, the guy has a point, seeing the silver lining of a real estate market correction:
There is another bubble that I hope will burst very soon—the ugly housing bubble. If you’ve ever had the misfortune of visiting an upper-middle class subdivision, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Once you’ve found a subdivision that sounds like a WASPish Connecticut country club, you’ll be perfectly prepared to take in the grotesqueness of your surroundings. A guidebook, however, is entirely unnecessary. These subdivisions are filled with the easily identifiable domicile sometimes referred to as the McMansion. The McMansion design seems to me to have been originally conceived as an anesthetized imitation of the past, a sort of fairy-tale version of grandeur meant for mass consumption. As such, it is inevitably an artistic failure.
Luckily for him, this guy isn’t in a glass house throwing stones. He happens to currently reside in Adams House, which has arguably the best architectural bones of any of Harvard’s residential colleges.
The Ugly Housing Bubble [Harvard Crimson]
For many people, McMansions are the epitome of conspicuous consumption; spending lavishly mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth rather than to satisfy a real need of the consumer.
The Brooklyn brownstones of today are very much like the McMansions of suburbia. Do brownstones kitchens really need Viking appliances and granite countertops? They werent orginal to the building. Do brownstone bathrooms need multi-head showers and jacuzzi’s. These weren’t orginal to the homes either.
Owing a home satisfies a real need. However, its not enough to simply own a brownstone these days. Its now gotten to a point where ‘luxury’ finishes are a necessity…. Conspicuous consumption.
Anon @ 11:09 – look I love Brownstones but some 19th century Lawyer/Doctor or successful shopkeeper having a 3600 sq ft home with a “parlor” and a formal dining room and or a library etc…in 1880 was just as ostentatious and ridiculous (relative to what is needed and what was the ‘norm’) as the modern day equivelant having an “observatory” or “sitting room”.
As to the quality of the construction, even if Brownstones werent sided with a porous stone, with drafty windows and leaky flat roofs and you subscribe to the belief that they were really well built – the notion that in 100 years McMansions will be abandoned because of the lack of quality in construction is just plain silly.
Now no one knows what the world will be like in 100yrs but assuming we are not living in an Islamic state or that global warming hasnt turned our planet uninhabitable or that fuel costs doesnt make the studio apartment the only viable housing unit – 21st century McMansions will still be standing strong.
A Levitt house is 60 years old now and still standing; those crappy 1950’s apartment houses that are all over are 50+ yrs old and still standing and the suburban subdivisions of the 60’s are 40yrs old and are still standing all of these examples have valuations that are still rising.
I beleive ‘McMansion’ is pejorative because it implies cheap mass-produced product designed to have the widest appeal.
I have also heard the term ‘sheetrock palace’.
David, I think you make a great point, actually, particularly about brownstones being the mcmansions of their day. Many brownstones were middle class housing – granted, the middle class was much smaller then, but that’s what many were.
I think what I object to about today’s mcmansions, besides the size, is that many are of a poor quality. Something tells me that no one in 100 years will be renovating anything Toll Bros. built.
On an aesthetic level isnt it inconsistent for those in the ‘I hate virtually everything new’camp and the ‘new development should blend into the surrounding community’ camp to deride McMansions?
I mean as this writer states ‘McMansions’ are simply “anesthetized imitation of the past” –
Well the two camps (so prominent on this board) constantly call for a design that in the end would essentially be the same thing- no? I mean its 2006 not 19th Century Brooklyn, anything that attempts to ‘blend’ in to Brownstone Brooklyn would be a disneyfied version at best.
And besides werent Brownstones the McMansions of their day? Arent all those great ‘details’ an attempt by their upper middle class of the 19th century to imitate the extreme wealth of the ruling class?
excellent article. not to mention the environmental costs to heat/cool the excessive amount of space and volume (30’ceilings); in keeping with the stupid FUV parked in the driveway.
I thought this was going to be another housing bubble discussion. Reminds me of the “Not So Big House” which trys to offer an alternative way of thinking about the new house, offering ideas about design which incorporate a contempory human friendly, energy efficient use of space. The thing about housing though is that a housing bubble are not going to make McMansions go away.
Why is the term McMansion used as a pejorative?
Brilliant!!