Since 1950, there has been a steady decrease in the size of U.S. and Canadian families, and in the amount of time those families spend at home. So why have home sizes doubled? In her book Little House on a Small Planet [1] (Lyons Press, September 2006), green building consultant, supervisor and teacher Shay Salomon posits that against this unsustainable trend stands a growing movement of small house people who live their values by putting their family, community and environmentalism above space, status and granite countertops.
When I first opened Little House and scanned the pictures, I have to admit I did not "oooo" and "ahhhh" as I might when I read Natural Home [2] or any number of glossy home books. The photographer for Little House, Nigel Valdez, chose pictures of real people on average days in their little houses. Nothing appears staged. People are relaxing with their kids, their feet up on the coffee table, or shaving in the bathtub, which happens to be in the kitchen. The book does not focus on polished surfaces of bamboo floors and stainless steel appliances, but on people living in their own quirky ways, together in tight spaces. Cupboards are open, beds are occupied and sheets are wrinkled.
I didn't "jones" for these houses, as Salomon puts it. I didn't think, "Wow, someday I'll have worked hard enough and have gotten paid well enough that I'll live like this." But that's exactly the point. These are houses that are not for someday or for heavy mortgages. They are for today--for living your life as it is and enjoying the now. The book argues that when we stop letting our egos make our housing choices and think of a home as a space to fit the action of our lives rather than a space to be filled, we can manage, and even luxuriate, in much less space.
Little House is split into three sections: building small houses, altering existing houses, and the politics of housing and lifestyle choices. Within these sections are countless stories, pictures, interviews and floor plans. Like a detailed manifesto, the book makes its case for small house living in the imperative: "Quit Jonesing" for your neighbors house, "Build a Glove Not a Warehouse," "Pay Off Your Debts" instead of creating more, "Live at Home" instead of spending all your days working to pay your mortgage, "Reclaim the Commons" by creating community and spaces to share, and "Remember the World" and the connections between first world consumption and worldwide poverty and oppression.
In fact, the politics of housing is a theme threaded throughout the entire book. Reading news coverage after Hurricane Katrina, Salomon learned that in Houston, where many of the refugees were headed, 14% of all housing units (homes, apartments, duplexes, etc) were vacant. Salomon did some research [3] on how this compares to the rest of the country. She found that in the year 2000 there were 10.4 million vacant units and 250,000 people sleeping in homeless shelters. This meant there were nearly 45 homes that were completely empty per person sleeping in shelters. Salomon asks, "How is it that we have a housing crisis? Maybe a homing crisis, or a sharing crisis, but this isn't a housing crisis. "
Although there is no data here as to how widespread or powerful this small house movement actually is, Little House makes a strong case for why this should be a movement. The book is informative and hopeful, even empowering. Salomon takes a refreshing approach in that instead of focusing intently on the problem of current housing trends, she provides the data we need to understand it, and then spends her energy on drawing out solutions that each one of us can choose to follow through.
Power to the little house people!