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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsLet them eat McMansions! The 1 percent, income inequality, and new-fashioned American excess
http://www.salon.com/2014/04/13/let_them_eat_mcmansions_the_1_percent_income_inequality_and_new_fashioned_american_exess/My first memorable encounter with what we now call the McMansion came about 1985. I was reclining comfortably under a concrete bridge on what were then the fringes of the Kansas City metro area, drinking beer with alienated friends and (if memory serves) listening to Husker Dus Zen Arcade on a boombox. In the twilight distance, we could see a housing development going upby which I mean a development of enormous piles, dozens of houses that were all far larger than the postwar ranches and split levels that were then so familiar to us.
Kansas City has always been a significant locale in the history of suburbia, thanks to the heroic labors of a few local developers, and as the 80s passed I became fascinated with the grandiose turn that sprawl was taking. I drove around, photographing and even walking through the yawning new homes on open-house days. What intrigued me then was the undisguised pretentiousness that accompanied the whole gaudy business. I visited a neighborhood called Patrician Woods. I took pictures of houses that seemed to have been designed by Stanford White after a debilitating brain injury. In 1990 I illustrated the second issue of my magazine, The Baffler, with preposterous home designs clipped from a local realtors catalog. Har har har.
What I didnt understand at the time was that these new ostentatious developments were a product not of some epidemic of vulgarity but of the larger economic changes in the world. By this I do not mean that Americans were being swept up in a wave of extraordinary affluence beginning in the 1980s, but rather that one class of Americans was essentially taking its leave of the rest of us. Hourly wages were dropping, the stock market was rising, taxes for the rich were falling, public housing was not a priority anymore, and in-your-face tract mansions were sprouting everywhere.
Today we call those changes inequality, and inequality is, obviously, the point of the McMansion. The suburban ideal of the 1950s, according to The Organization Man, was supposed to be classlessness, but the opposite ideal is the brick-to-the-head message of the dominant suburban form of today. The McMansion exists to separate and then celebrate the people who are wealthier than everybody else; this is the transcendent theme on which its crazy, discordant architectural features come harmonically together. This form of development wants nothing to do with the superficial community-mindedness of the postwar suburb, and the reason the giant house looks the way it does is to inform you of this. Have the security guard slam the gates, please, and the rest of the world be damned.
malaise
(269,054 posts)I remember RMoney showing off his car elevator (forget the regulation violations) thinking that would get him votes.
They disgust me.
spinbaby
(15,090 posts)They buy actual mansions or historic farmhouses or flats in London. The people who buy those badly-thought-out, cheaply constructed McMansions on tiny lots are people who would like to imagine they're rich.
Skidmore
(37,364 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 07:38 PM - Edit history (2)
a sense of aspirational wealth and the rise of prosperity religiosity to justify the stripping of empathetic citizenship from society. The rise of McMansions, block churches, and supermalls continued unabated for the next two decades in a superheated frenzy. States created lotteries and the once frowned upon vice of gambling was legally substituted for the taxation which has customarily served as the avenue by which a responsible citizenry supports its government and infrastructure. Rock and roll gamesmanship replaced industry and thrift with house flipping and stock market horse trading. You could see this all developing in real time and it didn't take an advanced degree or being versed in high finance to take note of the broad shift in societal tone and path.
Rozlee
(2,529 posts)We live on acreage in the Texas Hill Country. All around us, land was bought up by developers that built a couple of subdivisions with homes that started in the million dollar range. I don't know how much the retired director of the San Antonio FBI makes, but maybe he's independently wealthy and can afford to buy one of those places because he lives there. Otherwise, civil service must be very lucrative. My husband bought all our land in the 1970's when it wasn't very expensive, but now, the prices are through the roof. We were constantly being approached by developers that wanted to buy our land for a while, but it was a non-starter. My husband saw our land as the only security for our old age. He was right. It's the only thing we have of value now that he's got Alzheimer's and I might have to sell an acre here and there to afford his care. But, I won't sell to developers.
madaboutharry
(40,212 posts)If I had a million dollars to spend, I would buy an 2 bedroom apartment in New York. But, maybe that's just me.
reformist2
(9,841 posts)Laxman
(2,419 posts)thank You for posting this Xchrom. This is an unsustainable method of development and land use management that is incredibly destructive from a social, economic and environmental standpoint. This final paragraph lays out the entire way our society has bowed to this mentality of selfishness and excess:
but this only scratches the surface of the destructive nature of McMansion society. I could go on for pages!
reformist2
(9,841 posts)There simply isn't enough money to sustain this many McMillionaires and the values of all their McMansions. The only way from here is down.
llmart
(15,540 posts)As soon as the economy and housing market started to recuperate, at least in my suburban area of Detroit, the developers started up once again and what are they building? More McMansions, despite the fact that many of those McMansions were foreclosed on right up the street from the new development.
We all thought that the Great (Bush) Recession would lead to people finally "getting it" that you can lose it all, but Americans have very short memories.
Warpy
(111,276 posts)who have gone into incredible McDebt to buy and furnish these pleasure palaces. The bills have been coming due for some time now and the interiors, with the latest 90s fads, are quickly going by passe and degenerating into tacky.
In addition, there isn't much you can do with a McMansion once your circumstances have been reduced by years of a bad job market after decades of an economy hostile to the people who work to sustain it. They're just not set up decently enough to be chopped into flats or even duplexes.
Developers build these monstrosities for the same reason car companies pushed their SUVs and other huge vehicles while keeping their very nice small cars a relative secret: the profit margins are higher per sale on both.
And after about 15 years, when they need to reroof the monstronsity and the McManagers are now past their prime in the corporate world and unable to find a similar job with similar pay, will they have the money just to put on a new roof? But then Americans aren't known for looking down the road long term. Hell, McManagers are usually only concerned with short term profits in their work world, so it's not like they have any foresight.
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)but I think the houses they build are really beautiful, especially when they use flagstone in the masonry.
Someday...
lastlib
(23,248 posts)Acre after acre of essential sameness gets incredibly boring, and quickly becomes ugly. I work in these subdivisions day in and day out, and they get horrendously tedious to the eye. The houses don't have very big yards as a rule, and you can hit your neighbor with a rock from your back porch. Like plastic Christmas ornaments, these homes are shiny and bright at first, but in short order, they come to look gaudy and ordinary. I would love to have the money people spend on them, and use it for a smaller house with some acreage, and room to breathe without inhaling my neighbor's exhaust.
CFLDem
(2,083 posts)But I can still think acres of McMansions are still beautiful.
Much better than acres of rundown concrete jungle.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)... Not me. What am I gonna do with it? I'm fine with my half-acre. I don't own a McMansion, but I definitely value the square footage I have because I actually use it on a daily basis.
JoeyT
(6,785 posts)Once I hit the point I and everyone I'm friends with could get all the fresh fruit they wanted off our trees and vegetables out of the fields, I started planting stuff the local wildlife could eat.
I do have a pretty small house, though. What does anyone need all the room in a McMansion for? It serves no purpose other than to drive up heating/cooling bills and make maintenance cost a fortune.
Adrahil
(13,340 posts)I wish I did. I don't.
I'd love to reap the fresh veggies. They taste wonderful. But honestly, I have a brown thumb, and I despise it (I suspect the two are connected!)
OTOH, I love tinkering in my workshop.... building stuff, fixing stuff........ breaking stuff.
Some of this no doubt comes from my childhood where I never seemed to have enough room for anything, and my Mom was a bit of a hoarder. I love being able to a place for everything.
The only thing I really wish I had room for is a small archery range. I love to shoot my bow, and there isn't a good range around here.
hatrack
(59,587 posts)marions ghost
(19,841 posts)"Theres something else, too. Stand in the street when the sun hits the McMansion from the right angle and its glare obliterates the fake muntins in the windows and suddenly you grasp the truth about this form: It is staring at you with those blank featureless eyes, those empty holes in that vast, unadorned wall, demanding to be fed. This house doesnt serve humans, we serve it."
--from the OP article
butterfly77
(17,609 posts)onethatcares
(16,172 posts)is Blackstone gonna rent those things to?
Ilsa
(61,695 posts)That's a lot of extra space to heat and cool unless the family is big.
Tom Ripley
(4,945 posts)Hilarious. And perfect.
I always said that they looked like some unholy offspring of Liberace and Elvis Presley.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)DiverDave
(4,886 posts)built on the 'assembly line' method, they were junk.
I heard the punch lists, man the shoddy workmanship was astounding.
Foundations that were not level, cracking concrete, stairs not installed correctly...
Oh, and don't forget the hoa, the tight assed rules that tell you what sort of
freaking flower pots are acceptable.
I wouldn't live in one if I got it for free.
madaboutharry
(40,212 posts)tell me the same thing about "McMansion" houses they have worked on. I was also told that houses built after a real estate crash are built like crap because builders are stuck in a hole and when they do get a house to build they are cutting corners everywhere to increase their profit margins.
MisterP
(23,730 posts)nice (though horrible to be trapped in)
elsewhere in OC we have 90s/00s houses, each separated by 6 feet, with precisely 200 sq ft of yard, that are all saggy and leaky: the realtors know what's inside them
they're basically Le Corbusier's machines for living, but sans anywhere to walk to other than the local high school
George Will says that such human hutches, devoid of anything nearby save a car dealership, Home Depot, and a liquor store, and completely free of any transit except maybe a bus, is the highest humanity can aspire to
chrisa
(4,524 posts)The only point of a McMansion is to provide a mansion-sized house at the expense of a normal-sized house. The end result is a sacrificing of quality and livability.
You should see the McMansions here. There's a street I call "Monopoly Avenue," because the gaudy, box-like McMansions are literally almost stacked on each other like a bunch of plastic Monopoly houses. The houses consume their whole yard, with the windows of each monstrosity right up to and even with the windows of another (aka the peeping tom's dream).
The houses look like you can just pick them up. They're like cardboard boxes. They all look the same too - the only difference is the color, which sometimes also has duplicates. The best word to describe these houses seems to be "pukey."
The McMansions in the story sound elogant compared to the crap ones here. I wish I was exaggerating. They literally have no form - just huge boxes with no features (each side is totally flat and goes straight up to the roof - I'm not kidding), cheap windows, cheap doors, bad siding, no flowers or decorations.