"Things You Wouldn't Know If We Didn't Blog Intermittently."
16 August 2009
Average floor space of new homes
According to the Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, the floor area of newly built homes in the U.K. averages 76 square meters - the smallest in Europe.
From what I've seen in the UK, it's quite usual for single people to buy themselves a house and live there on their own. Here in Germany, if you buy a house it's because you've got kids, which means that you obviously need more space than if you're just one occupant or a couple. If that's the norm for other European countries as well, that might explain things a little.
Australia's a much bigger island than Japan or Britain.:)
I'd like to see a few more countries included in the comparison, starting with Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Maybe Morocco, South Africa, India, Ghana, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile if we wanted to go whole hog and actually contemplate the entire world. Average square footage of housing would make an interesting addition to Gapminder.
Australia is an island in the same sense the Americas are an island, it seems to me.
I'm with you, jsb-- it would be very interesting to see these figures for a wider range of countries. I think we'd find the intuitive result that areas with lower population densities and higher incomes tend to have larger homes.
"The Cabe survey questioned residents of homes built between 2003 and 2006, in London or within an hour's travel time of the capital."
Land prices in and around London are extremely high. I think it's safe to assume that will have a negative effect on the size of houses built there. The figure quoted might not be representative of the rest of the country.
which makes sense. Japan also builds smaller homes. Maybe being an island nation with more limited space has something to do with it?
ReplyDeleteAustralia is an island.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I've seen in the UK, it's quite usual for single people to buy themselves a house and live there on their own. Here in Germany, if you buy a house it's because you've got kids, which means that you obviously need more space than if you're just one occupant or a couple. If that's the norm for other European countries as well, that might explain things a little.
ReplyDeleteAustralia's a much bigger island than Japan or Britain.:)
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a few more countries included in the comparison, starting with Japan, China, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Maybe Morocco, South Africa, India, Ghana, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile if we wanted to go whole hog and actually contemplate the entire world. Average square footage of housing would make an interesting addition to Gapminder.
Australia is an island in the same sense the Americas are an island, it seems to me.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you, jsb-- it would be very interesting to see these figures for a wider range of countries. I think we'd find the intuitive result that areas with lower population densities and higher incomes tend to have larger homes.
Approximate numbers for the Netherlands (2001):
ReplyDeleteAvg. floor space: 97 sq. m.
New homes: 115 sq. m.
436 dwellings per 1000 inhabitants, which is around EU average.
Conclusion would be that we're rich and we prefer lots of indoor space to outdoor space with actual plants in it. I guess.
At the end of the article they state:
ReplyDelete"The Cabe survey questioned residents of homes built between 2003 and 2006, in London or within an hour's travel time of the capital."
Land prices in and around London are extremely high. I think it's safe to assume that will have a negative effect on the size of houses built there. The figure quoted might not be representative of the rest of the country.