[AlexdeLarge]

Ruins of the Second Gilded Age
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2009/07/05/magazine/20090705-gilded-slideshow_index.html

[Ainan]

Great find Alex. Amazing how the other half live. My whole apartment is smaller than many of the rooms shown and I only use half of it.

Who the hell would want to live in one of those places anyway?

[Sixstrings]

Portugeuse photographer, eh? Ye Gods, we can't even hire an American to take pictures of our own collapse..

[odegaard]

Great find Alex. Amazing how the other half live. My whole apartment is smaller than many of the rooms shown and I only use half of it.

Who the hell would want to live in one of those places anyway?

My apartment unit is very small by American standards.
Here's a pictorial showing the transition in housing sizes over the years.

yeah we have definitely reached "peak square-footage".

[JJ]

I posted this yesterday and it vanished? (but its in Open discussion forum)
http://peakoil.com/open/ruins-of-the-se ... 54364.html
weird.

[Tyler_JC]

To give people a general sense of the absurdity of the growth in house sizes think about these figures.

In 1950, the average household had 3.38 members. That 983 square foot house gave each member 291 square feet of living space.

By 2004, the average household had only 2.5 members. That 2349 square foot house gave each member 940 square feet of living space.

That means that each member of the typical American household living in a typical 2004 house had the equivalent of a 1950 house to himself.

The house size grew by a compound 1.63% rate each year.

The amount of individual living space grew by a compound rate of 2.2%.

[nobodypanic]

meh. maybe it's just me, but darn it, it just doesn't look ruinous enough.

abandoned detroit looks much more intimidating.

[Tyler_JC]

Wait ten years.

Those empty luxury condos will look a lot more ruinous once rain, robbers, and rust dig in.