In a series of articles on the nature of greed, Christian blogger Ted Scofield writes:

When I ask people "What is greed?" typically the first concept articulated involves the notion of abundance. Greed is when you have too much stuff (which only money can buy), or place too much importance on stuff, or spend too much time pursuing or wanting or envying stuff.

A college student told me, "When people are sleeping on the street and you have a Mercedes and four empty bedrooms in your McMansion, then you are greedy." The late comedian George Carlin might agree: "That's the whole meaning of life, isn't it? Trying to find a place for your stuff … That's all your house is—a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff. Sometimes you've got to move, you've got to get a bigger house. Why? Too much stuff!"

According to a 2024 article on the Bankrate.com website:

American homes are only getting bigger. Exponentially bigger, in fact: The most recent American Home Size Index, a study by the warranty company American Home Shield, found that the average size of a new single-family home has nearly tripled in the last 75 years. In 1949 the figure was 909 square feet, and by 2021 it had rocketed to an average of 2,480 square feet.

There are few reasons for this. Homeowners made a push to the suburbs after World War II, which saw the square footage of homes increase along with access to more land. This also allowed for less population density than big cities. The report found that, while home sizes increased, the number of people living in them actually decreased: 15.7 percent of homes were reportedly “overcrowded” in 1950, but 50 years later, just 5.7 percent were.

Editor’s Note: This article was updated in December of 2024