There are few things in our lives which are more primal than shelter - our homes. Yet to great extent, we are forced, almost by happenstance, to accept something not entirely to our liking.

Location, location, location

That's the old realtor's adage, and it is one of the most important factors which determine how we might live. It is best if our homes are in some proximity to our jobs, our extended families, our friends, and to those other destinations to which we frequently travel - places of education, procurement of goods and services, spiritual reinforcement, and recreation/exercise.

Modern neighborhoods, and the zoning codes which created them, however, segregate us increasingly into suburban subdivisions. Our lives in subdivisions are centered around automotive travel. Because subdivision design creates large "residential-only" zones, in which the only walkable-distance destinations are other homes, automobiles are required for us to get to any other type of destination.

It appears that the housing bubble burst of recent months has been, to some degree, misunderstood by most of the reporting class. Cultural authority James Howard Kunstler (www.kunstler.com), the author of The Long Emergency, believes the bursting housing bubble, and associated economic putrification, really represent a manifestation of the collapse of the whole suburban development pattern.

Without getting too far afield, this is associated with very large economic forces affiliated with a permanent rearrangement in the proportion of energy supply to demand. The recent emphasis on developing an energy infrastructure based on corn-derived ethanol is a colossal mis-investment of resources for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the very limited return in energy output to energy input, and the effect that greater demand for corn for ethanol has on the price of corn for food.

There are really no easy replacements available for cheap petroleum. Most of the stories we've been hearing are centered on unproven technologies and limited-scale studies. Replacing the petroleum-fuel automotive infrastructure will be a phenomenal effort. In the interim, we'll still need our cars, but, in an era of ever-increasing fuel costs, the slack in how much people will absorb, trying to maintain their current lifestyles, will decrease.

So we'll need to live closer to the places in which we spend our time away from home. That in part means being closer to and using modes of mass transit, too.

The current housing stock consists of many available large suburban tract homes, and relatively fewer, more urban older homes. Each has their weaknesses. For a family of two, even the 3-bedroom standard home can be rather large. We've grown accustomed to this norm, but heating, cooling, and lighting these large dwellings is getting more and more expensive, as is the tax and insurance burden. Not to mention the newer homes' general disadvantageous location and lack of charm. And our propensity to fill available space with stuff we don't need. Stuff to insure and for which we're otherwise accountable. Some of the older homes are smaller, and in neighborhoods which reflect a more human-scale existence (sidewalks which actually go somewhere, narrower, slower-speed streets, etc.). But these homes frequently have their own displeasing characteristics. Older homes often have cut-up, peculiar (by modern standards) floor plans, lead paint and asbestos issues, old mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems, deferred maintenance, drafty windows and doors, and poor or non-existent insulation, and lack attached garages, to name but a few drawbacks.

Size Matters

What especially those of us with small families (but, I propose, most home buyers) need are choices of smaller, but nice homes in locations near our most frequent destinations. Like nice, small cars (until fairly recently, "small car" meant something dreadful, like Pinto or Chevette), this is a niche which has generally been ignored. Home builders, responding to but also creating the market, have given buyers long lists of large, many-gabled suburban "McMansions" in various shades of tan (one friend calls the endless tracts of look-alike beige boxes "The Taupers" in stupefied awe), built of materials not found in nature, with ornamented facades but plywood-like sides and rear, and large floor plans consisting of many redundant, featureless rooms, all swathed in carpet. Some of us would like to take the good things about these newer homes (primarily the open floor plans, ample closets, master bathrooms and better insulation) and employ them in smaller, well-designed homes with better locations.

My own home, located in a nondescript subdivision, stands in its vinyl-clad grandeur, all 1,900 square feet of it, three bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths, a "great room" with a 17-foot vaulted ceiling, a redundant rec room, and an 18-foot by 14-foot master bedroom, housing two people. We could do with much less. And more.

My Challenge

Small can be beautiful, if done smartly, with quality materials and good workmanship. In much less space (say, 1,200 square feet), I'd like to find or build a good, sustainable and efficient home, of good materials, with an open floor plan consisting of multiple-use rooms and an aesthetically-pleasing exterior. I've grown accustomed to a few of the features of my suburban "tauper", but I want out of the suburbs. I want lots of light from south-facing windows (for passive-solar advantage), flow-through ventilation, plenty of built-in shelving (none of which are characteristic of my current home), and a tight exterior envelope, generous master closet, dedicated master bath, attached garage, and open floor plan (all of which my current home does have). Is that so much to ask?