Recently there was a home in Rocklin, California profiled by the United States Green Building Council for being LEED certified; this acronym refers to a basic rating from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design.  This featured home, part of a neighborhood named Carsten Crossings, was actually one of a number of home models within what stands as the first entirely LEED-certified housing subdivision in the United States.  Considered the American standard for rating “green” buildings, LEED certification covers many aspects of design and construction, from site selection to water and energy efficiency.  However, what seems to have escaped consideration is any sense of modesty in regard to the size of these homes.  The city of Rocklin is primarily a sprawling bedroom community; located twenty miles northwest of Sacramento, it consists of just over 50,000 residents in an area one-third the size of Long Beach.  On the surface, Rocklin is like most of the other suburbs growing along Interstate 80.  And it is precisely this similarity of Rocklin’s homes to those built before them that exemplifies one of the most significant obstacles to a true “greening” of the residential market.

 

The three, four, and five-bedroom homes of Carsten Crossings range from 2,168 to 2,755 square feet. Such large footprints reflect how the modern home has expanded enormously, far beyond what just a few decades ago was considered necessary for even larger families.  Much of Long Beach’s housing stock was built prior to the 1950s, and floor plans were quite efficient.  A home built in the early 1920s in Bluff Heights or Rose Park would often be between 900 and 1,300 square feet, with two or three bedrooms. Our former home was relatively in its environs, with four bedrooms and two bathrooms; yet it was still only around 1,700 square feet.

 

This pattern of modestly-sized homes (though they would be considered huge in many other parts of the world) for the most part continued through the post-war building boom; at that point, homes began to get a bit larger to accommodate new modern appliances like refrigerators and washing machines.  As America’s manufacturing base transitioned from planes and tanks to automobiles and home electronics, homes grew to contain these new consumer items.  At the same time, the fabric of cities began to spill out from rings of streetcar suburbs to wholly new satellite communities built along freeway corridors.  As the residential population became more thinly distributed, homeowners more frequently fulfilled leisure needs at home.  Televisions anchoring home entertainment systems, backyard pools, children’s play-sets, and even basketball hoops over the garage door satisfied the recreational needs that were not being met by a lack of access to adequate park facilities.

 

Even given such historic shifts, however, these homes built in the mid-20th century would be eclipsed by the products of the latest residential building boom.  The National Association of Home Builders (the national-level trade group representing the residential construction industry) reports that from 1978 to 2007, the average size of new homes went from 1,750 square feet to 2,479 square feet. In other words, in only 30 years the average home size has increased over 40%. This is hardly a “sustainable” trend, particularly given the number of new homes being built (even in the current downturn market).

 

The crux of the problem is simple: the LEED rating system developed by the United States Green Building Council does not account for size.  Examples are not difficult to find.  For instance, a house recently was built in Austin, Texas.  Known as “Tonalacalli” (for “House of Sun and Water”), the home boasts an impressive array of energy and water conservation systems; in terms of building materials and methods, the home is incredibly eco-friendly as well.  From one perspective, it is thus understandable that the home received the covered “LEED platinum” rating, but the rating entirely fails to take into account the fact that the home is over 3,200 square feet in size, with over 900 additional square feet of covered porches and walkways.  Designers have increasingly tended to point out the negative impact of home size, and there is hope that it will be addressed in future revisions of the LEED rating system.

 

This glaring contradiction—emphasizing energy efficiency while ignoring size—is not unlike arguments against “fuel efficient” sports utility vehicles, such as the Cadillac Hybrid Escalade.  Sure, the vehicle gets 50% better fuel economy than a regular Escalade, but that is still only amounts to 20 MPG.  That is not as good as the regular Honda Civic Sedan (36 MPG) and far worse than the Honda Civic Hybrid (45 MPG). As is the case with large homes, it is true that some people may feel they require large vehicles, for instance to accommodate a large family or for work needs. Yet just as we so often see an SUV with only a single occupant on the highway, so many large homes serve as residences for a family that could live comfortably in a home half the size.  And a home half the size would typically consume half the energy and require half the building materials of its larger alternative.  Building more modestly-sized homes may therefore stand as the most “green” strategy available today, outside of reusing existing structures (a discussion for another time).  The perception that “bigger is better” must change if our communities are to become truly sustainable.