What if small were fashionable? [View All]

Is it just me, or have we hit some sort of consumer zenith? Our meals, houses and automobiles are supersized, but the sheer number of things we own, or are told we must own, has also grown exponentially in the past few years. All this stuff cannot help but add to the high stress levels Americans report in our lives.

That may be why the snug little cottage profiled at right evokes a certain serenity. It was designed as a temporary home for Katrina victims, people who no longer have a lot of stuff. Along with the fact that it provides shelter and has a cute porch, the Katrina Cottage hasn't much space to put stuff. For me, that's part of its appeal.

What if small were to become fashionable? What if we were to decide, as a community, that quality mattered more than quantity? What if we had to move into spaces half the size we now occupy? Besides solving not a few local housing problems, how liberating would that be?

Admittedly, my daydream is to move out of my overstuffed house, taking only the best pieces of furniture, art and accessories and leaving the detritus of 20-plus years for new owners to sort out. But what really attracts is the idea that one could actually change the thrust of one's life -- from working to accumulate and support things to actually living. It is a concept not lost on many cultures, regardless of the neoconservative idea that those people who hate America are really just jealous of our way of life.

The American economy is growth-based: that is, it's not enough that we produce and consume the same amount we did last year. We must always produce and consume more. Buying stuff is the American way of life, but at the risk of appearing unpatriotic, I find the idea of slowing that process personally liberating. That it would also be a political statement is attested by a Bay Area group called the Compact, whose members have pledged not to purchase new non-essentials for a year. In a Feb. 13 profile, Chronicle staff writer Carolyn Jones quoted Compact member John Perry saying: "Consumer culture is destroying the world.''

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/03/04/HOG86HFNE11.DTL&type=printable