I disagree. Living in Philadelphia most of my life, I went from a 2100 sq ft home to a 700 sq ft loft almost only 6 miles apart. Living large has it's advantages but living in a smaller sustainable loft is the best. So much easier to clean, lower utility bills, cost of fixing things is usually lower. Why should one person live in 2100 sq ft? Now that I look back, it was just such a waste of space.

Not so, boomer, or maybe "yes, but."

Real estate prices on the coasts are insane; in the middle of the country, they're only mildly demented. Either way, lots of people have dealt with rising prices by simply moving further out. That's how you end up with Silicon Valley workers owning McMansions in the Central Valley and with Phoenicians spending their early mornings sitting on the I-10 behind a pick-up fire, frantically punching buttons on their Blackberries.

Then they have no time to enjoy their suburban McMansions. Combine that with the "voluntary simplicity" movement, the general trendiness of seeking "authenticity" and more intense experiences, and a retreat to neo-retro forms (including "new urbanism") due to a vague feeling that life is out of control -- and then you have the impetus for the educated middle-class to start moving closer to their jobs, into smaller homes that require less maintenance time.

Our 2 BR apartment costs us more than a 4 BR house of comparable quality would out in Surprise (as in, "Surprise! Your AC bill for July is a three digit number!"), so it's not just budget that sends people into less expansive, more centrally located dwellings.

We looked at CenPho condos for sale this weekend, and y'know... I don't want a kitchen that requires more than two steps in any direction from the stove, nor can I think of anything useful to do with a third bedroom. It's certainly possible for a space to be too small to support activities that are important to us, but it's also definitely possible for a space to be too big.

So yeah, budget is not irrelevant, but it looks like there's also a movement to choose "small" when budget could allow for other choices.

Moving from a 1-bedroom into a small studio apartment changed my life. I had to get rid of a ton of stuff I'd just been lugging from one living arrangement to another in college, and the experience was freeing. I don't accumulate junk anymore because there's no room for it, and I had to think carefully about what I really needed and where to put it — leading me to apartment therapy and my newfound love of design =] Small is the best!