3 It is not sustainable for Australia to have the biggest homes in the world The Landmark A multitude of house size rankings put the average Australian new home at the top of the world’s biggest homes list. Elle Decor magazine in August 2015 listed Australian homes with an average size of 250 square metres as top of their world ranking ahead of the USA, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Japan, United Kingdom and China in that order. Abc.net.au quoted Demographia with Australia top at 221.7 square metres while Shrinkthatfootprint.com used data from CommSec, Reserve Bank of Australia, the UN and the US census to measure the average residential floor space per capita. Yet again Australia came out on top with 96 square metres a person ahead of the US on 83 square metres. CommSec put out an important announcement on October 31, 2016 to announce the news that Australia had dropped to second in the biggest houses stakes with the US in its post GFC recovery now taking the number one spot. The average Australian house was now only 231 square metres while the average US house had jumped to 249.6 square metres. An article in The Conversation Magazine on December 2016 outlined research by Andrew Stephan and Robert Crawford of the University of Melbourne. Their research focussed on detached houses which the compared the average size in 1950 at 100 square metres with todays 240 square metres. Even more significant was the fact that more people lived in each house in 1950 with an average of 30 square metres per person. Today this has jumped three times to an average of 87 square metres a person. This dramatic increase in standards and amenity to some extent represents a more affluent society. The problem is that this affluence has also led to Australian homes and particularly those in cities like Sydney becoming unaffordable for many people. Sydney, according to a Demographia survey is now the second most unaffordable city for housing in the world. We must ask the following question. Could Sydney's second global ranking for housing unaffordability be a direct result of Sydney having the second largest homes in the world? “The average Australian house in 1950 had 30 square metres per person, in 2017 this has grown to 87 square metres per person.” AVERAGE RESIDENTIAL FLOOR SPACE PER PERSON Australia 96 US 83 Canada 78 Denmark 70 Germany 59 Sweden 42 Japan 38 Spain 37 UK 35 Italy 33 Data from Shrinkthatfootprint.com