Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes people drive more (2015)

Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by sbov on Friday December 28, 2018 @06:19PM (#18780296)

I could do without the yard, but I couldn't imagine having much less than what we have now (1962 sq feet). 3 kids (1 a surprise - yay twins for the second pregnancy) plus a home office because I work from home.

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Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by iso1337 on Saturday December 29, 2018 @12:13AM (#18781996)

Yes, once you are used to that kind of space, it’s hard to go back. Hedonistic treadmill and all (or some kind of treadmill). People in the 60s had larger families with smaller houses. However, to fulfill our expectations of progress, House sizes in America keep growing decade after decade.

I’m fully guilty of this myself too. But like all things it cannot keep growing indefinitely.

http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...

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Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by sbov on Saturday December 29, 2018 @02:39AM (#18782494)

Your link's lowest datapoint has the average/median square feet per person at 500/550 square feet, back around 1973. I'm at 392 square feet per person. I'm not sure I'm on a hedonistic treadmill, but if it is I'm in a time warp.

Beyond that, the stats in that article are just plain bad because it ignores the fact that not everyone lives in a new house, but it still compares the average household size to ONLY new homes built in that year.

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Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by iso1337 on Saturday December 29, 2018 @03:00AM (#18782561)

Sorry, I was on mobile and found the first link. But I think the stats aren't as bad as you think. For any given year, you will have some inventory disappear completely. There is also new inventory being built. So, the average house size of all houses is also increasing. Not as much as the average new house size, but definitely increasing. Most people don't live in old houses from the 60s.

I would actually ignore the average household size. We already know that that that decreasing over time.

Note that I didn't intend my comment to be a personal attack on you. I'm merely trying to point out this trend. Apologies if I came off that way. But your case also highlights another fact that was rare back in the day -- using your house as an office is increasingly becoming viable or necessary for those doing remote work.

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Re:Fundamental rule of traffic: building new roads makes peo... by sbov on Saturday December 29, 2018 @03:31AM (#18782648)

Yeah, between smaller households and new houses being built being on average larger, the trend certainly is that we are getting more square feet for less people. I just think the article does a lot of things with the numbers that are questionable.

I didn't take it personally, but I also didn't quite know the best way to respond either. I probably didn't do the best job at it.

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