We can sometimes be a conceited bunch us Aussies - proud of 'the lucky country'.

Remember that Donald Horne, who coined the phrase, was actually having an insightful dig at our lazy prosperity. "Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck." His argument was that most industrialised countries have prospered economically from ingenuity and dogged enterprise, and politically from suffering and great struggle. European Australians, on the other hand, just plundered "terra nulius" and adopted the Westminster system - piece of piss mate!

Our (misguided?) conceit stems from endless beaches, sporting prowess (up the... ahem... Wallabies?), pristine wilderness, global envy, etc. etc. But there's one race we are sadly winning and it seems as though it might be an extension of the thoughtless good fortune we have enjoyed for a couple of hundred years.

I stumbled across this troubling post http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house

Australia has by far the biggest new house size (Gold for Australia!) with an average of 214 m², ahead of the US with 201 and the Canada with 181. More telling perhaps is the per capita rate of residential floor space available where we smash the seppos by over 15% with a whopping 89 m² per person compared to 77 in the US (Gold, gold gold!).

And check this out from the post...

In London they have a new minimum space standard as part of the London Plan. For new flats the minimum standards are 37 m² for one person, 50 m² for two people in one bedroom, 61 m² for three people with two bedrooms, and 74 m² for four people in three bedrooms.

Poor pommies, doing it tough. But are they really?

There's heaps of stuff out there about small = beautiful = smart = eco, go find it yourself and start shrinking. Nothing quite like a scary infographic to put a cracker under you.