Too Big, Boring, or Ugly: Planning and Design Tools to Combat Monotony, the Too-big House, and Teardowns

Cookie-cutter boxes line up like plastic houses on a Monopoly board. Brawny new construction shoulders into established neighborhoods. Monster houses crowd together in new subdivisions. Today's bigger, faster, cheaper home building methods are changing the character of communities, but there are ways to both preserve character and meet market demand. This report offers planning and design tools to tame the too-big house, shake free of monotonous development, and negotiate the political minefield of teardowns.