Tucked improbably in an article about the rise and fall of the ranch house is a handy "things are getting better all the time" metric:
Housing has always been governed by a simple rule: As people become richer, they spend more money on their homes…. Spending more money has usually meant making the home bigger. This happened in Renaissance Italy, 17th-century Holland, and 19th-century England. It also happened in the prosperous second half of the 20th century in the United States. Some statistics: In 1950 the median size of a new house was 800 square feet; by 1970 this had increased to 1,300; 20 years later it had grown to 1,900; and in 2003 it stood at 2,100. More than one-third of new houses built today exceed 2,400 square feet.
Extra bonus update from the Reason vaults: For even more in this vein, check out this or especially this (which mentions increasing square footage of homes as a leading indicator that "the good old days are now.")
