• Home
  • News
    • Politics & Government
    • Business & Economy
    • Crime / Courts
    • Health / Medicine
  • Sports
    • High School Sports
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • Affiliates
    • Affiliate Support Page
  • Contact Us
    • Reporters

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

You are here: Home / Business / ISU study: Size matters when it comes to being happy with your house

ISU study: Size matters when it comes to being happy with your house

December 27, 2019 By Matt Kelley

Daniel Kuhlmann (ISU photo)

An Iowa State University study finds people are more likely to be unhappy with their house if it’s smaller than their neighbors’ houses.

Daniel Kuhlmann, an ISU professor of community and regional planning, studied data as far back as the U.S. Census Bureau’s 1993 National American Housing Survey, which included a special neighborhood section assessing people’s home satisfaction.

“There’s this idea that when position matters, if there’s some value people get from living in the largest house in their neighborhood, that itself is by definition a scarce resource,” Kuhlmann says. “Only one of us can have the largest house.”

Our housing decisions may affect our neighbors’ actions, Kuhlmann says, and we could be unwittingly pushing our neighbors to spend more money to buy larger homes to “catch up.” It’s one possible explanation for the steady boost in the size of single-family houses nationwide over the last five decades.

“We care about how we compare to our neighbors, right?” Kuhlmann says. “I don’t think it’s necessarily materialism exclusively that explains this. I think it raises larger questions that need to be answered about how we’re building neighborhoods and how we’re building cities and the impact that these things have on not only our own wellbeing but our social wellbeing.”

As suburbs become more developed, Kuhlmann says big houses tend to beget even bigger houses. His research found that people living in the smallest house in their neighborhood are on average five-percent more likely to say they’re dissatisfied with their house compared to those living in the largest houses.

“What really makes us better off?” Kuhlmann asks. “Is it living in larger homes in the suburbs or would we all be better off if our homes were slightly smaller? We’d be spending less on housing. We’d be living closer to our neighbors, stuff like that. It’s just one small part of this larger impact of the way in which we live that I like to think a lot about in my field.”

The study was published this fall in the academic journal Housing Studies.

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Filed Under: Business, News

Featured Stories

Iowans 65+ now eligible in next phase of Covid vaccinations

Bill would remove transfer limits in five Iowa school districts

Former Iowa sports talk host sentenced to federal prison for ticket scams

Feenstra only member of Iowa delegation not at Biden’s inauguration

Congresswoman Axne favors Biden pandemic relief plan, Hinson not ruling out a ‘yes’

TwitterFacebook
Tweets by RadioIowa

Unbeaten Drake visits Missouri State

UNI adds two nonconference games to basketball schedule

Iowa State-Kansas postponed

Iowa-Michigan State postponed

Fire damage to Riverfront Stadium electrical system will cost Waterloo thousands

More Sports

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Archives

Copyright © 2021 · Learfield News & Ag, LLC