[ghaff]

At least in the US, many towns have minimum lot sizes. My (admittedly somewhat rural) town has a minimum of two acres and that's not at all uncommon.

[TylerE]

That sounds pretty huge, even to me. The typical American suburban neighborhood is lots of 1/4-1/3 acre or so.

[ghaff]

This is an ex-urban town. We have apple orchards and the like. Not typical suburbia but this is about an hour outside of Boston. And I'm sure there are grandfathered plots that are smaller. On the other hand, I lived in a more conventionally suburban town for a number of years and a somewhat tonier adjacent suburban town had similar lot minimums as I recall.