My Manhattan apartment is about 800 square feet, the same size as my upstairs neighbors\u2019 \u2014 except they\u2019re a family of four plus a large dog. Much as that blows my mind, I also realize that, not so long ago, an 800-square-foot apartment for a family of four in New York would have counted as luxurious.<\/p>\n
How far we\u2019ve come. A married couple living in a 2,000-square-foot house in suburban Salt Lake City recently told the Times that, though they always imagined having several children, they were now reluctant because they would need a bigger house, which they couldn\u2019t afford. Even if they were just rationalizing their decision, there is a correlation between falling birthrates and rising home costs.<\/p>\n
The average size of a single-family house built in the 1960s was about 1,500 square feet, and homes within multifamily units were about 800 square feet. Now those figures are more than 2,000 square feet and more than 1,200 square feet, respectively. Over the last decades households also became smaller, decreasing from an average of 3.3 people in 1960 to 2.5 today. It\u2019s almost as if every member of a household gets their own bathroom.<\/p>\n