I've been pondering this, it seems to me that comfort and prosperity go hand in hand with the size of your dwelling space, other things the same. Similarly, I think home ownership is a big perk. But I'm not sure how much this is looked at when we look at measures of prosperity. I mean, obviously other things are more important like access to good, affordable healthcare. But if I'm looking at measures like GDP per capita, I start to wonder how much this skews measures of prosperity due to the different costs of living space and general availability of larger living space.
For starters, I think it's interesting that USA home ownership doesn't strike me as particularly high, although I think home ownership is somewhat related to the idea of "The American Dream."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ownership_rate
I'm still looking for some data on what the average living space is by country/state, inclusive of rented dwellings and all owner occupied dwellings, whether newly built or not (I'm finding more data about new houses only, but that doesn't really encapsulate the prosperity of a population with regards to their living space as well as total living space for all dwellings because the average newly built house is not necessarily indicative about what an average resident's living space is like).
Simply put, one could live in a cracker box in a big city and pay huge rent, even though someone making much less could buy a much larger house in a different area. On paper, the former would look to be better off, but the cost of living space clearly distorts things if we are looking at overall prosperity.
I'm curious what others think and if they put as much value in living space and home ownership as I do. Also, if anyone can help me find some better data, that would be cool! Median income to rent per square ft (m) and median income to sq ft (m) of home purchase price seem like interesting metrics.
For starters, I think it's interesting that USA home ownership doesn't strike me as particularly high, although I think home ownership is somewhat related to the idea of "The American Dream."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...ownership_rate
I'm still looking for some data on what the average living space is by country/state, inclusive of rented dwellings and all owner occupied dwellings, whether newly built or not (I'm finding more data about new houses only, but that doesn't really encapsulate the prosperity of a population with regards to their living space as well as total living space for all dwellings because the average newly built house is not necessarily indicative about what an average resident's living space is like).
Simply put, one could live in a cracker box in a big city and pay huge rent, even though someone making much less could buy a much larger house in a different area. On paper, the former would look to be better off, but the cost of living space clearly distorts things if we are looking at overall prosperity.
I'm curious what others think and if they put as much value in living space and home ownership as I do. Also, if anyone can help me find some better data, that would be cool! Median income to rent per square ft (m) and median income to sq ft (m) of home purchase price seem like interesting metrics.