Where Do We Live - Housing Trends: Big Is Beautiful

We may live at greater densities in our urban areas, but the trend in housing is toward more room rather than less.

The graph above illustrates trends in construction based on the 1997 residential housing survey conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy. It provides a partial picture of the housing stock in that year, divided by periods in which the housing was constructed. Only the smallest dwelling units (those less than 1,000 square feet of heated floor space) and the largest dwelling units (those with 3,000 square feet or more of heated floor space) are shown.

The idea is to show how construction at the two extremes has fared over a period of 50 years or more. Data are shown as units in these size ranges built in each decade as a percentage of total units built. Units include all kinds of residential construction. The total universe is more than 100,000 dwellings.

The trend is quite striking. Fewer and fewer small dwelling units were built since the 1970s and, since the 1950s, more and more large homes.

The upsurge in the construction of smaller dwellings in the 1960s and 1970s may reflect economic woes, particularly in the 1970s. There was a recession spanning 1960-1961 and another that began in 1969; there were two recessions in the 1970s, the first beginning in 1969 and lasting through almost all of 1970. Another lasted 17 months, beginning in November 1973 and ending in March of 1975. The early 1980s also saw two recessions, but these apparently did not cause a continued gain in the construction of small-footprint dwellings. The 1990s were almost cloudless except for an eight-month downturn in the economy in 1990-1991. Recessions apparently did not dampen our enthusiasm for large homes.

Generally, dwellings with more square footage have increased their share of the housing stock, those with less have dropped in share. This is shown in the table below:

Change in Share, between 1949 or before and 1990-1997

Square Footage Category	Change in Share -%
No estimate provided	-7.48
<1000	-16.36
1,000 to 1,599	2.41
1,600 to 1,999	1.75
2,000 to 2,399	2.78
2,400 to 2,999	6.39
3,000 or more	10.51

Note that in the categories above 1,000 square feet, the greater the square footage, the greater the gain in share. The only exception is in the 1,600 to 1,999 category (about 15% of the housing stock). The trend is clearly toward more space. The decisive loser is the small home.

Other data bear this out. A look at new privately owned one-family houses completed in the 1970 to 1999 period indicates that average floor area has increased from 1,500 to 2,225 square feet in the period. Large homes (2,400 sq. feet and larger), which had a 15% share of this category in 1980, had earned a 34% (and largest) share in 1999.

Economics — rather than an increase in the size of families — has been driving this trend. Since the 1965, when children per family reached a peak of 2.42, the number of children has been in decline, reaching 1.84 in 1997; by 2000, the number had further dropped to 1.75.

Source: U.S. Department of Energy. Energy Information Administration. Office of Energy Markets and End Use. "A Look at Residential Energy Consumption in 1997." (November 1999). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. 1999. New construction data are from Statistical Abstract of the United States, 2001. Table 938, p. 597.