John,
Thanks for sharing these. It always makes me sad when I hear of houses getting bigger with some single family houses over 5000 sf. History shows us that these large houses are not sustainable, many of the affluent homes of the early 20th century were converted into multi-family dwellings a long time ago and very few have been changed back. One might be able to argue that these converted houses give people another alternative to a typical apartment, but too often I find that these end up in the hands of (to be blunt) slum lords, and the building usually ends up deteriorating slowly due to poor maintenance. It's simply better for an individual's pocketbook and a community's long-term plan to think about smaller to modest sized homes. For the record, I'd like to point out that the homes I'm picturing are more of a super-sized cookie cutter style - not the custom beauties that some CRAN members are privledged to be a part of.
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Brenda Nelson Assoc. AIA
Woodruff Design, LLC
Cedar Rapids IA
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