What a weird straw-man.

I live in a 600sq ft 2-bedroom apartment with my wife, and we cook nearly every meal at home, we rarely go out to bars, or spend much money in the city.

But we have 6-7 cute cafes within a 5 minute walk, so we stop in for a coffee now and then. We have a big park that we can picnic in, three blocks away. There are a ton of fun things to do for cheap or free nearby.

We don’t need a ton of space at home because our city provides us a lot of happiness.

If you can walk to handle all of your basic needs, then you don’t need to have so much at home, is the point that the GP was making.

For example, we keep much less food at home in Europe than we used to in the US, because I can just drop by the veggie stand or mini-grocery on my walk/bike home from work and get a fresh version of whatever I want to cook that night.

We don’t need a beer fridge because there is a beer store selling cold beer cans within a block of us, and with way more selection.

I think the point is that these giant houses provide a lot more than a “modicum” of self sufficiency.

I live in an apartment and cook plenty, for example.

I'm not saying we should ban 4000 sq.ft. detached homes on large sprawling lots. They just shouldn't be the ONLY type of home being built. Give people options so they can choose.

In fact, if you want to have that beautiful home surrounded by nature and not suburban cookie cutter houses, then it's also in your interest to see that cities stay in the cities. Too many orchards and farms have been demolished to build miserable tracts of poorly constructed wood frame houses.

While I agree with your general point I am really not sure it's as binary as you present it. I live in a apartment building and I cook all of my food and clean my dishes... in my kitchen. I also fix/do diy in my apartment. I can repair my bike in the basement area.

If I were hunting/growing my own food, sure I'd want to live in a house with terrain around but that's a level of self-sufficiency that's quite rare in suburbia last time I checked.

Beer fridge? Is that supposed to be a fridge just for beers?