Big Steps in Building

Do we need these monstrous mega-mac-mansions, filled with stuff that we hardly use? Wouldn't it be better to live small with just the things we need and use? My vote is for the latter.

"The average post-war 1950’s house was 983 square feet; by 1970 it was 1500 SF; last year it was 2350. Encouraging smaller homes, like smaller cars, would save a lot of energy, but codes applies the same standard across the board. Just as conservation is a resource, everything we use in housing has embodied energy, a carbon footprint and an operating cost; we have to treat them all as resources where we can mine savings of energy and greenhouse gases."

Big Steps in Building: Change our Building Codes from Relative to Absolute (TreeHugger)