A lovely walk.

• Author: Rundles, Jeff
• Position: RUNDLES [wrap-up] - Editorial

When I was a kid, I thought we were rich. We lived in a 2,500-square-foot Cape Cod, four bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, a full basement and a two-car garage, one of the nicest properties in a very nice neighborhood.

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Of course, there were seven of us, and we kids shared bedrooms, but at the time it sure looked like the upper middle class. Many of my schoolmates lived in much more modest homes, where everyone was pretty packed in, but they seemed comfortable and hardly anyone gave it much thought. Oh, there were a few much larger homes, and a few "my-house-is-bigger-than-your-house" showoffs, but not many. As my mother used to say, "I'd hate to have to clean it."

Of course, that all changed in the 1980s, '90s and into this decade as the McMansion boom really took hold. And for quite a while there I believer this led to suburban sprawl, as many of the younger people coming into their home-buying and child-rearing years found they could go larger if they were willing to make the commute back to civilization for work, groceries and the other necessities of life. The object wasn't location; it was purely size. The bigger, the better.

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There's a sea change happening, and I believe it will have a profound effect on urban and suburban development for years to come.

The first effect is about size. There are quite a few rather largish spec houses for sale in my neighborhood, and while they are nicely done, about the only people who can afford them these days want to downsize. Not because of the price, mind you, but because, I believe, of the carbon footprint. I read right here in ColoradoBiz last month, in David Lewis' piece on Telluride real estate, that even in a haven for the uber rich there's a "shift in philosophy ... the concept of 'more is better' is over." People are looking for smaller, more energy-efficient houses. I truly believe what this means is that the scrape-off days are over and will be replaced with redeveloping existing homes into more modest, yet more modern, homes.

The other effect is location, once again, I believe, because of carbon footprint angst.

I was recently doing some research on real estate - foreclosure rates, etc. - and came upon a service called Walk Score (www.walkscrore.com). I found it referenced by many Realtor websites as a selling point on certain pieces of property...