“Middle class families in Southern California don’t live the way you might expect,” said Jeanne Arnold, a UCLA professor of anthropology. “Most parents in dual-income families never spend leisure time in their yards, their children play outside much less than expected and most cars can’t fit in garages because they’re too full of clutter from the house.”
“From construction materials to excess furniture and toys, storage of material goods has become an overwhelming burden for most middle-class families,” said Arnold. “We found items blocking driveways, cluttering backyard corners and spilling out of garages,” said Ursula Lang, a study co-author.
“Most kids’ play in the front is on asphalt driveways, streets or concrete sidewalks,” Arnold said. “There were only a few instance of play with tree-swings or bats and balls that carried onto the front lawns. Indeed, the manicured lawns and formally landscaped areas in front of quite a few of the houses seem to actively discourage play and other rambunctious activity. They seemed to invite passersby to admire the owner’s good taste and conformity with neighborhood ideals.”
Sounds like a few cities and suburbs I’ve lived in. Nowadays, my home is in a rural setting surrounded by neighbors who mostly work construction trades and are owner-builders — we’re more likely to have landscaping that looks suspiciously like an old pickup truck.
But, uh, what does your neighborhood look like? Using your garage space for motor vehicles — or cardboard boxes?
Sounds like a crock to me. As I see it, the explanation is fairly obvious; Californians have roughly the same volume of material possessions as anyone else, but they live in significantly smaller homes for their income level than most other Americans, due to the exorbitant housing prices. Think about it – in urban CA, half-a-million dollars gets you a house most Americans buy for $100-200k.
Hence the erroneous impression is that they have too much stuff rather than they simply have less square footage than people elsewhere who have just as much stuff.
I have to agree. Too much stuff.
However, it is also the result of :
1. Divorce – I gotta keep it, even though I will NEVER open those boxes again.
2. Wacko Christmas Gifts – Stuff I will never get a chance to use because, well…I just don’t do that type of work
3. Lawn Care supplies and equipment – The neighbors get crazy when I let my lawn go over 10 inches growth, even though in the NW it rains every weekend (which is not good for cutting lawns)
4. Stockpiles of food and supplies – just because I KNOW the world is gonna end on my watch.
5. Boxes and Recyclables – Have to keep the cardboard out of the rain, and the truck only comes by once a week with a subjected limit of the amount you can remove a week (see number 1)
I will say I can fit my Scion in the Garage. My Dakota – It won’t even make it past the door due to the extra lift kit installed for 4WD.
I live in an apartment and I have to continually get rid of crap. Thank goodness for Freecycle, Craigslist and eBay.
This story reminds me of George Carlin’s “stuff” routine, which was brilliantly accurate.
It’s clutterered here alright but since this little town is not overdeveloped there’s plenty of greenery everywhere.
One word of caution though: NEVER BUY A HOUSE IN THE CARIBBEAN WHERE THE BROCHURE BRAGS THAT IT’S VERY CLOSE TO NATURE. You’ll be spending the rest of your life searching the house for poisonous snakes.
This is part of why I’ve decided to buy a condo or a loft style apartment, though not in the U.S. Less space means less room for stored junk, and you can still use the parks and streets to get out and do things.
Garage? We don’t need no stinkin’ garage here in Baja. But this story rings true to me. When we moved out of a much bigger place in Northern California, in addition to the stuff we sent to Freecycle I think we filled up five or six medium-sized dumpsters with crap, though that’s not the term Carlin would have used. Just old or broken (but someday I might fix this) or magpie wife’s “can’t just throw this away, I’ve had it since whenever” type things that got stuffed into sheds, accumulated on shelves, or to be fair got stripped out of the house while prepping it for resale.
When my mother in law died, my wife and I had a similar experience emptying her garage. It was jammed full, mostly with foodstuff bought on sale and stored, with Depression-era sensibilities, against hard times coming again. You wouldn’t believe all the swelled-out, ready to explode canned tomatoes we found. But she did have a lawn. It was a magnet for neighborhood dogs needing a place to crap.
Pedro, Don’t feel bad. I have have a double size lot and my kid, now 15, never spent as much time outside as I did as a kid and it not just my kid.
When I was growing up there wasn’t a empty lot that wasn’t used for baseball or football. No it is rare to see kids playing unless they are in organized leagues.
I think a lot of it comes from the paranoia of parents. When I was a kid, during the summer you left the house shortly after you woke up, ate lunch either at your house or the house of a friend (using some unorganized yet fair rotation), and were back out you house before the street lights came on.
If a parent allowed that now they would be considered criminals.
During the last few years I’ve noticed an incredible amount of rental storage businesses pop up everywhere in the US. Why is there now such a need for people to store crap in these places ? (besides the random horror stories)
On the one hand we have…
Middle class families have too much stuff.
On the other hand we have…
Middle class families feeling the squeeze of hard economic times.
Hmmmm…
I don’t know a middle class kid without an iPod, a Honda, and a few extra bucks…
So… I’m opting for too much stuff.
We turned our garage into a playroom this year as our family grew from 2 kids to 3 kids . Meanwhile, our house mysteriously is remaining the same 3 bedroom size. Many of our friends and family think it is just awful that we are making the children share bedrooms . One even commented that it bordered on child abuse. I think this says a lot about the external pressures of maintaining appearances of prosperity. The fact that we think it is better for our children for mom to stay-home and live in a smaller house makes us appear weird to others certainly says something about the societal values and the “American Dream.”
This is a nationwide epidemic. Americans spend money on things they don’t need with money they don’t have. Their homes and garages are cluttered with junk they more than likely still have a balance on their credit card for years later. Half the people in my neighborhood can’t drive their vehicles into the garage. I see them out in the middle of winter warming up their vehicle and scraping frost from their windows. We have enough stuff from Asia. Let’s just swap what we’ve already imported around between us. We could easily cut out trade deficit in half and increase our negative savings rate if people would just clean out their garage and sell it to other people.
It’s pretty damn cluttered here in FL too.
All 6 bays in the carriage house is available. There is some storage facilities on the estate, but only the staff goes there. I believe one of the guest cottage might be a tad junkie. 🙂
As one friend says, here in California, you fill your garage with junk so that you can park your luxury car in the open air…
In the last two middle class neighborhoods I’ve lived in (Albuquerque, Las Vegas NV), garages were used as storage lockers in half of the homes.
Most people didn’t store their “stuff” outdoors in these neighborhoods except for vehicles, but only a few houses had yards big enough for kids to play in. Land’s too expensive in these cities for big yards, and there’s a water shortage problem in both cities, so there are few lawns.
I tend to agree with both sides of this…..we buy to much junk and the homes, for the price are getting smaller, in many areas, but not all.
Here in the Silicon Valley, older homes tend to be on average around 1600 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms and a garage and yard. The newer homes are typically 1400 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, a garage and almost no yard.
At home in Arizona, an older typical home averages 1800 to 1900 Sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, a garage and a huge yard. The newer ones are averaging about 2200 sq. ft. with 3 bedrooms, a garage and a big yard.
California is just plain out of control on housing prices, but everyone still seems to want to live the good life or at least fake everyone else out….lol….so, the tendency to overbuy junk they don’t need.
#1 Sounds like a crock to me.
Not to me.
It’s sad and kind-of-funny to see these families buy huge McMansions and then STILL have to rent a mini-storage. Or, they buy a gigantic SUV or mini-van and still have to put one of those roof pod-thingies.
I marvel that my aunts and uncles were able to own their first home — often paid for — soon after high school. (that was after WWII)
But you almost can’t find new houses that small now — cabins really: one bedroom for the parents, a second for all the kids, a living room and the kitchen. One bathroom.
When my cousins reminisce about growing up in those tiny little homes, they NEVER EVER mention being cramped or feeling underprivileged.
All of us are collecting way too much stuff. The average American family has over $8000 in credit card debt.
People are buying more DVDs, clothes, books, magazines and having to store it all.
Technological obsolescence is adding more clutter to our homes or the landfills. People place the new TV on top of the old one in the living room. How many DVD players (some not working!) are stacking up in our homes?
I think three times now before buying anything. Do I really need this? Is it just going to collect dust? Can I just rent this movie or check out this book from the library instead of buying it?
The swag and handouts I get from trade shows and from meetings at work add to the clutter. I give away screeners and freebies all the time to try to reduce the stuff piling up.
If you have to rent space to store you’re stuff, you simply have too much stuff. – Suzie Orman
No such thing as “too much stuff” only “not enough space”.
I would definitely agree with Chris on this. But on the other side, there’s no harm in collecting stuff if you have enough space. If one does not have enough space, there’s no point in having so many stuffs.