Sometimes the unexpected intersection of unrelated trends and events can be . . . illuminating. Whether we’ll be comfortable with the resulting insights is another story.
Sunday was a such a day. That’s when the New York Times business section ran a lengthy lead story headlined “The Great Compression,” an obvious play on “the great recession” and “the great resignation,” both recent developments that are still working their way through the economy. “Thanks to soaring housing prices, the era of the 400-square-foot subdivision house is upon us,” the subhead explained, with the story then relating how even so limited a home size can be preferable for some people when compared to the financial uncertainty of ever-increasing rents.
Sunday evening, TV host John Oliver made headlines of his own. Oliver offered Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas—who has complained that he doesn’t get paid enough, apparently as a justification for accepting lavish gifts from the billionaire class—an annual stipend of $1 million if he would step down from the bench. As a deal sweetener, Oliver said he would throw in a brand-new Prevost Marathon motorcoach to replace Thomas’ current model, which he purchased for $267,230 in 1999 with the help of a “loan” from one of his benefactors.
Forget the annual stipend: that Prevost all by itself might be enough to sway Thomas, who makes little effort at hiding his upper-crust pretensions even as he dons the mantle of common-man humility. Driving a motorcoach that cost more than most people’s homes was important to him, he has said, because it enabled him to escape the “meanness” of Washington, D.C. and to connect with regular people and the American heartland. He has a preference for seeing the regular parts of the United States and spending time with the people he meets along the way in RV parks and Walmart parking lots, Thomas has said, as it feels normal to him and he comes from regular stock. Thomas likes the word “regular” quite a bit.
Then again, Thomas also corrected an interviewer who referred to his Prevost as an RV by maintaining that it is, in fact, not an RV but “a motorcoach”—a “condo on wheels.” Which, of course, is exactly what “regular” folks expect to see in a Walmart parking lot. (And not to nit-pick, but despite Thomas’ claim to the contrary, motorcoaches are indeed RVs, which simply means “recreational vehicles.” But “RV” sounds so, um, déclassé, don’t you think?)
Still, it must chafe Thomas that his condo on wheels is now well into its third decade. As wheeled conveyances go, that’s so old—just one more year, and in Virginia that Prevost will qualify for a special antique license plate. Which is why Oliver’s offer must be tempting: the 2024 Prevost MarathonH3-45 model retails for upwards of $2.4 million, depending on the upgrade package. And at 45 feet in length with two slide-outs, it offers 430 square feet of floor space—enough for a king-size bed, 1.5 bathrooms, a home-size refrigerator and four large TV sets on which to watch John Oliver on Last Week Tonight.
It’s also a stunning contrast with the teensy tract houses that are now popping up around the country, apparently targeting the very kind of “regular” people that patronize Walmart stores, where they can ogle Clarence Thomas’ wheeled condos. This new iteration of the American dream, typically ranging between 350 and 800 square feet, is not to be confused with the trendy embrace of “tiny homes,” which typically—but not always—are mounted on a chassis and can claim at least some amount of mobility. The compressed homes are stick-built on permanent foundations, just like their more conventional brethren, and conform to federal housing construction regulations. They exist simply because too many people can no longer afford a “regular” home.
Let me not overstate the size of this phenomenon. As the Times article notes, homes under 500 square feet still comprise less than 1% of the new homes being built in the U.S.—but they’re the start of something that might have been unimaginable a decade ago. And at the same time, it’s hard not to see this development as a diminishment of what it means to be middle-class—a diminishment thrown into sharp relief by the contrast with Thomas’ aspirations. While some folks can drive condos on wheels, others will just have to settle for a similarly sized—and much less luxuriously appointed—house that isn’t going anywhere. As, all too often, may be true of them as well.
One other intersection bears noting. The New York Times article opened with a vignette featuring Robert Lanter, a 63-year-old retired nurse who searched in vain for a “regular” home he could afford in Deschutes County, Oregon, after moving back to the area from a condo in Portland. He ended up in 600 square feet, in a house “that can be traversed in five seconds and vacuumed from a single outlet,” in a neighborhood of homes as small as 20-by-20 feet.
Coincidentally, the previous day I had posted about Deschutes County toying with the idea of permitting RVs to be used as year-round homes because of the lack of affordable housing. I called out the idea—slated for a possible public hearing, following a Feb. 28 meeting of county commissioners and planning staff—as a sure-fire recipe for creating dispersed slums. The Times article demonstrates that even in Deschutes there are sounder—if no larger—alternatives becoming available, and so prudence might suggest holding off on the RV idea for a while.
But if, for some reason, the county commissioners want to stick with the RV concept anyway, maybe they should contact Clarence Thomas. He just might be looking to unload a 24-year-old condo on wheels.
Renting Dirt 