(no subject)

[lucifermourning]

last night at the pub i had an intriguing discussion about american v. british attitudes toward living space. americans tend to have much bigger houses, particular middle class americans, than their british equivalants.
it was suggested that this is, in a great part, due to relative population densities, which i believe is probably roughly true. according to wikipedia, the UK has a population density of 243/square km, v. the US 30 /square km, albeit greatly varying by area.
but it also must have something to do with attitudes. those i spoke to may remember my description of the house i grew up--much square footage, large rooms, etc.--and not a particularly big house for my area. such living space are not at all atypical in new jersey--actually, it's quite challenging to find a small house.
but new jersey has a population density of 438/square km.
we just seem to think we need more space to live in.
(not that any of my conclusions are scientific, i'm just intrigued.)

Comments

too far from the sidewalk

[grey-damaskena.livejournal.com]

When I show pictures of my house to my students, they think my family is rich. Of course we're not, though we're fairly well off, but Japan is more like England in this case than otherwise. If anything, living spaces are even smaller here.

There's another factor, of course, that being length of history for the general population. In both Japan and England, people have been building and rebuilding in the same locations for more than two thousand years. In the US, it's been about three hundred years for the oldest locations (yes, I'm discounting the native populations, because other than out west, they didn't build very permanently). I can't help but think that this has an influence on how much space people expect to have.