Kids still play sports, and get involved with school activities. I can't see how a trend of bigger houses is going to make a significant difference, as far as a kid being sheltered. It's up to the parents if the kids are going to be active at school or the community, or sit in the house all day and play video games. Point is you can still teach those values.
People resist change. If you grew up in the 50's you may have a tendency to think it was all so much better then.
People have a choice to do what they want. It's called "freedom." Would I personally buy an SUV? Hell no, for the most part they're a joke, but I could care less if my neighbor buys 4 Hummers. Same type of thing with the house. Nobody's got a "responsibility" to have a big yard, and it's not 1950 anymore, unfortunately that kind of corner malt shop community is gone, or going away. I'm sure there's plenty of small towns like that people can move to if they choose. And I'm not saying people shouldn't take economic and environmental responsibilities, but in America, it's a personal thing. How do you know the same guy driving the new Hummer didn't just donate a ton of money to a great charity? So why do people go and key these things left and right? Jealousy.
The same people that bash other's choices, I'd bet 90% are hypocrites: they wear clothes made in sweat shops, makeup tested on animals, ect...and they have no clue. Too many people pretend they've got a halo around their head.
The same reasons that drive economy and growth, also drive in people that buy these "oppressive" and "unecessary" homes. Take Boston: has a lot of diversity, culture, museums, top universities in the world, big companies, ect. This also drives in high-income people that buy the expensive cars/real estate. And those real estate prices are affected far outside the city.
That is really interesting about "Holland is full". The unoffical Oregon motto was, for years, "Thank you for visiting, please don't stay".
Interesting too is that Oregon's population explosion of the late 80s, early 90s was blamed on wealthy California "immigrants" who were cashing-out of busy lifes to come relax a bit -- thereby importing their hectic lifestyle and traffic congestion.
I think cultural differences play a huge role: my Phillipina friend is almost embarrassed about the size of her home because, to her, it seems excessive.... kind of greedy.... a bit pretensious.
America is a huge sprawling country and there certainly is room to sprawl out. I grew up in Texas where a typical city block might have say, four houses - everybody except apartment dwellers had a yard. I had a huge shock moving to Oregon where land is not as easily buildable.
To me, not having a yard was unthinkable. Here, $200,000. will buy you an older 1,000 sf house on a 5,000 sf lot (like mine) or a 2,500 sf newer house on a 4,000 sf lot.
Slappy, I don't think anyone is really criticising those kind of homes. Most of my friends live in homes exactly like you describe. In a lot of cases - even in the upper middle class cases - they become slaves to their homes though.
And I'm just basing this on my own observation but I do see a lot less activity in those neighborhoods than I do in my own.
The reason that I posted the anecdote about the family building a 3,000 sf house so their son would have room to play was on purpose - obviously they expect their kid to play indoors.
I think that speaks volumes about the cultural impact of these types of houses.
Slappy, take the sports thing -- there has been a huge increase in repetitive-motion injuries in kids, 'cause instead of just going out and PLAYING they're doing organized sports. They're too specialized, it's too intense.
A lot of this stuff has implications like that. One thing on its own, whatever, but then that one thing leads to something else which leads to something else...
Agreed about values, of course. But there is definite causality with a lot of this stuff.
