[bko]

Take pretty much any quality of life thing. Just as one example

Mississippi: The average home size 2,065 square feet

United Kingdom: The average home size is 818 square feet

No, you cannot "eat GDP", but its a useful proxy as it correlates very highly to a lot of things we do care about

[letier]

I wonder how it interacts with life expectancy.

There is a huge difference between Mississippi and the UK: 78.6 years for males and 82.6 years for females in the UK in 2020 to 2022. 68.6 years for males and 75.2 years for females in Mississippi in 2020 and 67.7 years for makes and 74.3 years for females in Mississippi in 2021. Might go up a bit if you have 2022 numbers, but the difference is huge.

[HideousKojima]

Life expectancy differences in Mississippi vs. the UK is largely due to race. Mississippi is about 36% black, and blacks in the US have a 5+ year shorter life expectancy than whites.

[pavel_lishin]

How do Black people fare in the UK?

Because if there's no discrepancy, or a smaller one, it seems to suggest that maybe GDP and square-footage-of-your-house is actually not all that important.

[dml2135]

And... why does that matter?

[HideousKojima]

Because the comment I was replying to was wondering if there was any relationship between the GDP per capita of each location and the life expectancy?

[dml2135]

To me your comment seems to be implying one of two things: 1) Black people are biologically hardwired to have a shorter life expectancy than white people 2) A shorter life expectancy among black people doesn't count -- it's only life expectancy among white people that matters

Could you clarify further if you meant one of these, or if you meant something else that I was not able to pick up on?

[HideousKojima]

Neither, simply that there appears to be little correlation between GDP per capita and life expectancy between Mississippi and the UK, and the lion's share of the difference is due to lower life expectancies amongst blacks (the reasons for their lower life expectancy being something I didn't get into at all).

[ropejumper]

This requires a justification for why home size is a good indicator of quality of life, or for why it's more important than other indicators.

[bko]

I don't know anyone who doesn't want more space. And I couldn't imagine raising a family in 800 square feet.

Do we really need a "source" for everything? Would it be meaningful if you saw some survey asking: Would you prefer your primary residence to be smaller, larger or the same size?

I guess you can say all things being equal larger homes are more expensive so there must be some kind of preference for larger homes that indicates value

[jpalawaga]

Do those same people also care about quality of education, availability and utility of public transit, etc? Or is the size of your home the only factor in what makes somewhere livable?

[bko]

I don't think anyone really cares about "public transit". I think people care how convenient their life is. Why should I care if I take a bus to work or drive? I prefer whatever is best for me.

I would look at cost + time. For instance, if it costs me an extra $2k per year for a car but it saves me 30 minutes round trip, and my time is worth more than $20 an hour (assume work 200 days per year), then car is better. Add the convenience of not having to manage bus schedules and, you know, owning a car, its a no-brainer. I think there's some weird cultish behavior around "public transit" as though it is a good by itself is disconnected to how most people think about this.

So in this case not being able to afford a car or have anywhere to park it is not the win you think it is.

In terms of education, not sure its quantifiable but if you look at money, Mississippi spends considerably more:

In England, secondary school spending per pupil in 2024-25 is projected to be about £7,400 ($9.4k), while primary school spending per pupil is about £6,700 ($8.5k)

In Mississippi its around $12k

Do you have any other data or are you just going entirely off of vibes?

https://ifs.org.uk/publications/annual-report-education-spen...

https://www.datapandas.org/ranking/per-pupil-spending-by-sta...

[freejazz]

>I don't think anyone really cares about "public transit". I think people care how convenient their life is. Why should I care if I take a bus to work or drive? I prefer whatever is best for me.

Let me take a guess, you are an American, living in a city without good public transit.

[poincaredisk]

I explicitly care about "public transport". I strongly dislike cars, like trains and bike lanes, mostly commute by bus. I can't imagine living in a place without a good public transport. I strongly prefer cities and places without too many cars everywhere.

>Add the convenience of not having to manage bus schedules and, you know, owning a car, its a no-brainer.

I assume you live in a place where cars are the default, or the only, mode of transportation? It's not like this everywhere.

[bko]

Right, you can like public transport and that's fine. But most people don't care and prefer to have cars. This is especially true if you have a family.

Just two examples:

- food shopping is a lot more expensive if you have to buy local and you're restricted to how much you can carry

- it's kind of rude taking a sick or injured child to the doctor on public transportation

This is obvious if you look at behavior. When people get more money, they buy a car or often multiple cars. When they have a family, people tend to move to suburbs where cars are the primary mode of transportation. Even in cities with good public transportation, like New York, wealthy people still often own cars and use them along with private car service.

People might answer some survey stating they like public transportation but their behavior suggests otherwise. And these surveys are frame against an impossible ideal that does not exist. Look at behavior.

[AmVess]

Small homes just plain suck. No room to do anything, stuffy, cramped. GF and I moved, rented a house for a month. 1400 square feet. 700 up, 700 down. Tiny and cramped, and it only had one very small bathroom.

We had to sleep on different floors. Master bedroom was barely larger than the queen bed, and no way 2 people could sleep in there because it would get blazing hot in minutes.

Garage was similarly minuscule. GF had a tiny suv and still couldn't open both doors.

I figure 1000 square feet per adult is just about right.

[tjridesbikes]

What are you on about? My wife and I live in a total of 1000 square feet in a Boston triple-decker and get along totally fine. We have a basement for storage and a parking space for our car. Somehow, we're both able to work from home without getting in each other's way, have space to do our own things, and temperature regulation is a non-issue with mini-splits. We even have a shared yard!

Maybe the space wasn't laid out well. I would imagine, with only 700 sq ft per floor, a good portion of that is taken up by the stairs. My condo is a flat in a 100-year-old building, built before the "open concept" plans came into vogue. It means out rooms are separated and lets my wife and I do different things in different parts of the house.

People used to raise families in these old buildings with 1000 square feet. Their third-spaces weren't taken over by profit-seeking companies and their interests took them outside the home. 2000 square feet for 2 people seems utterly ridiculous!

[meindnoch]

Lol. 1400sqft is cramped in the US? I have a 120m2 house, which would be about 1300sqft, and we have two kids rooms, one master bedroom with its own wardrobe and a bathroom, one shared bathroom, and na american kitchen and living room.

What are you guys even doing? Or maybe the 1400sqft included the garage?

[Marsymars]

> Lol. 1400sqft is cramped in the US?

If they hadn't done the math I'd have suspected a typo.

I'm in a place not all that much larger (1800 sqft) and it feels pretty luxuriously large for just me and my partner. Big open kitchen, two living rooms, 2.5 bathrooms, three bedrooms (one used as an office for myself) and a dedicated office for my wife.

[footy]

sounds like a bad space distribution. I live in a 700 sqft apartment and my bedroom is large enough for a bed (where my girlfriend and I absolutely can both sleep) a small desk, a weight bench, a rowing machine, and some normal bedroom stuff (dressers etc)

[xandrius]

Population density

Mississipi: 24.5/km2

UK: 279/km2

Maybe, only maybe, that has an effect on house sizes?

[HideousKojima]

New Jersey population density: 488/km2

New Jersey median home square footage: 1,740

Doesn't look like it?

[xandrius]

Then if houses are larger and density is higher then one can conclude that the UK has more green spaces, non-developed areas whole NJ is fairly built up? Which also conversely has an impact on quality of living.