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It's a consequence of excessive land costs. If the lot costs half a million, it seems appropriate to put a big fancy house on it. This leads to too much house for the lot.

Most people's idea of a house is rather conservative. It includes slanted roofs and modest sized windows with small panes. If you build a modernist steel and glass house with stone elements in a suburban setting, you may get a writeup in Architectural Record, but it will be hard to sell.

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In addition to newer regulations aimed at exclusion. After a burst of new development of upper-middle-class homes in my town, the new residents voted in a new mayor and aldermen, and the new leadership passed a law preventing the construction of any home within city limits of less than 2000 square feet. The old part of the city would be mostly illegal to build under current regulations.

And this happens everywhere. When you realize that most of the desirable places to live in the US are illegal to build, it really makes you wonder what the hell we're doing. The answer is that we'll suffer an immense burden of stupidity in return for order. If you've ever sat at a red light at midnight, you should know that feeling.

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