Letters: Big Houses, the Interstate, and a Diva

Copyright © 2006 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

ROBERT SEIGEL, host:

Thursday is the day we read from your email, and Margot Adler's story about the growth of the American house, sent a lot of you to your computers to write to us.

MICHELE NORRIS, host:

The average house is now 2,300 square feet. That's double what it was in 1950, and that's changed the way we interact with our families and our communities.

SEIGEL: I listened with rapt fascination to the McMansion story, writes Laurie Johnson(ph) of Sherwood, Arkansas. It was a peek into a parallel universe that I will never belong to. My entire apartment is probably the size of a single closet or bathroom in these monstrosities, 950 square feet. I dream of going up to 1,500 square feet. I guess I'd better myself a 70s-era house before they vanish in the wild.

NORRIS: Tom Schlaffly(ph) of St. Louis points out that big houses are not new. He writes, I live in an 8,700-square-foot house, in the central west end of St. Louis, that's nearly 95 years old. It's one of the smaller houses in the subdivision, some of which have more than 15,000 square feet. To equate owning a large house with escapism and urban sprawl is unfair. White flight from urban cores throughout the United States, was exacerbated by people who abandoned magnificent Victorian mansions, many of which were demolished, or converted into rooming houses. A greater appreciation for these architectural gems might have stemmed this exodus. The abandonment of American cities is the problem, not the size of the new ex-urban houses the fugitives choose to live in.

SEIGEL: And these two points from Carol Urbanich(ph) of Columbus, Ohio. Number One: Big houses are about greed. Number Two: I think I'd like to have one, if someone else would clean it and cut the grass.

NORRIS: How's that for honesty? Now, on to your letters about another hallmark of modern-day American, the interstate highway system. Last week, on the 50th anniversary of its founding, we spoke with several transportation engineers about their favorite stretches of road.

SEIGEL: Several of you wrote in to share your favorites, including Pam Stein(ph) of Radcliff, Kentucky.

NORRIS: She writes about the stretch of I-35, as you come over the hill, heading north into Duluth, Minnesota and Superior, Wisconsin. No matter what time of the day or night, Stein writes, no matter what season of the year, the view of the harbor, the lake, and the cities of Duluth-Superior is breathtaking. I haven't lived there in years, but I remember the last time I saw that view ten years ago, in my rear-view mirror. The beauty is real and tangible.

SEIGEL: And from the town of Railroad, Pennsylvania, these observations from listener Michael Wright(ph): As I listen to your report, he writes, I was ironically in one of those daily interstate traffic jams that millions of Americans experience every day. I heard the proud statements of the engineer, about how gratifying it's been for him to design highways. I couldn't help but consider how much more gratifying it would be, to work on an alternative national transportation that could be more efficient and less costly to both our national budget and our environment. I find it unsettling to think that the interstate system may remain our primary means of transportation for the next 50 years.

NORRIS: Finally a note from Warren Keith Wright(ph) of Arbor, Missouri, on our remembrance of American mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.

SEIGEL: Thank you for the tribute and the chance to hear her speaking voice, as striking as her singing voice, he writes. This is a grievous loss to music and music lovers. She had much more to share. Listening to her recording of the Bach Cantata, Ich Habe Genug, was always an intense experience. Now it will be a heartbreaking one.

NORRIS: Please keep your thoughts and comments coming. Go to npr.org and click on Contact Us at the top of the page.

(Soundbite of Ich Habe Genug)

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