United States – Page 44 – understand-culture

Houses people love to hate

According to the U.S. Census Bureau „The average new American home last year was 2,480 square feet, an increase of 88 square feet from 2010.“ These excessively large single-family homes are often referred to as „McMansions“ due to their relatively low cost and massive size.

By comparison, this is more than double the average home size in France and Denmark. The average size of a house in the United Kingdom was 818 square feet in 2009. Large homes consume large amounts of electricity, water, and other resources.

Americans tend to fill these large homes with numerous large things such as high capacity washing machines, clothes dryers, and kitchen appliances. Americans tend to keep the temperature of their home around 70 degrees Fahrenheit regardless of the temperature outside or amount of energy required to do so. Although some utility companies are encouraging Americans to use more efficient lighting, inefficient lighting and appliances remain the norm in most of the country.

American homes tend to be found on large plots of land, especially in affluent suburban areas. These lots are usually landscaped and planted with decorative plants and grasses that must be mowed, watered, and maintained. Mowing large lawns requires large tractors that, in turn, consume large amounts of gasoline. Watering lawns is a very inefficient process during hot summer months when much of the water evaporates before it has a chance to absorb into the soil.

Increasing home efficiency: In November 2010 the Obama Administration announced a program that provides funds to help Americans make their homes more energy efficient. The funds are used, for example, to insulate attics or put double panes on windows to trap heat in the winter and cold air in the summer months.”

Many local utility companies now send “efficiency packs” to new customers that include water-saving nozzles for faucets, energy efficient light bulbs, and suggestions on how to save energy during the warmest and coolest months.

The U.S. government also provides rebates for new commercial and residential wind and solar power projects. These initiatives have a dual function. They are aimed at bolstering the U.S. economy by creating jobs in the renewable energy sector. And they are also aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy efficiency. America is striving to be more “green.”

Pimp My Ride

DIY or Do it Yourself projects are very common in the United States. Rather than buying reliable products, many Americans prefer to buy unreliable products and then, using DIY, turn them into reliable (or at least different) products. This can be anything from salvaging a broken toaster to buying old houses and refurbishing them.

According to a recent survey, 3 out of 4 Americans who make changes to their houses will include some form of DIY. Additionally, there has also been a recent surge of DIY websites explaining to Americans how to go about fixing and upgrading products on their own.

There have been several American television shows that showcase DIY, including Pimp my Ride, which restored rundown vehicles, This Old House, which restored old houses, and even Home Improvement, a sitcom which centered around the antics of a DIY presenter, Tim Allen, as he routinely made mistakes showing people how to fix appliances and redesign their houses.

It turns out that Pimp my Ride was a bit deceptive. Oops!

“The same product forever?”

Americans rarely want to own a product for an extended period of time. Most are updated, changed, modified on a regular basis, giving them a kind of newness. These include: computers, electronicc, automobiles, and clothing styles.

Even houses are torn down so that new ones can be built in their place. To the extent that a person views themself as a product, some even alter their own physical appearance via cosmetic surgery: lift, tuck, tighten, remove, add.

Americans simply don‘t want to own, use or be seen with the same product for all too long. They want what is new, better, the „next best thing“, whether it is truly better or not.

Think of mobility in the U.S. Large percentages of Americans in a given year move from one place to another. Job mobility has always been a part of the American economy, now more than ever involuntarily.

Americans own cars for shorter amount of years than in most Western cultures. Fashion cycles are short, the trends are frequent. America is the land of fads, crazes, rages. It‘s a very large and diverse market, culture. It is a consume and consumer oriented economy.

Durable is important to Americans, but for a shorter period of time.

Smart

Smart power: In international relations, the term smart power refers to the combination of hard and soft power strategies. It is defined by the Center for Strategic and International Studies as “an approach that underscores the necessity of a strong military, but also invests heavily in alliances, partnerships, and institutions of all levels to expand American influence and establish legitimacy of American action.

It is smart because it achieves the desired outcome with the minimum amount of effort and utilizes every available resource. It focuses on the desired political effect.

Intelligent products: Products increasingly rely on technology that thinks for the user. Some examples are social networking (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), smart phones, software, weapons systems, and home automation systems.

Social networking now includes functions that match peoples’ networks and interests and suggest friends or connections. This decreases the amount of time that a user needs to search for users similar to themselves. Smart phones include voice recognition software and question-answer functions like the popular Siri function of the iPhone 4S. Software often reminds users to complete tasks like upgrading software or checks to ensure a user intended to take a certain action.

Weapons systems enable troops to save time by identifying friendly and hostile forces and automatically alerting allied troops of nearby threats. In the home automation sector, technologies such as the Nest thermostat learns the patterns of its users and automatically adjusts the temperature of the home in accordance with previous trends.

Drowning cars

Because Americans like to upgrade products so often, they have developed interesting ways to dispose of their old products. One such way is in an ice car competition.

In many northern cities in the U.S., there is a tradition that involves driving a car out onto a frozen lake in the middle of winter, and taking bets on when the car will break through the ice when temperatures rise.

The activity became popular in the 1940s when civic groups (such as the Lions Club) realized that putting an old, unused car on the ice and betting on when it would crash through would be a fun competition and a good way to dispose of an old piece of machinery and generate revenue for local cities.

These days, with environmental awareness on the rise, most cities have laws against dumping old cars in lakes. As a result, in cities that continue this tradition, the towns typically remove the engine and transmission, and make sure there are no fluids in the car that might damage the environment. Additionally, the cars are usually tethered to the bank so that they can easily be pulled out of the lake once they break through.

In cities that participate in this tradition, having your car plunge through the ice is considered something of an honor, and it’s not unusual for people to donate their old cars when they want to buy new ones.

Try anything once

The idea that people should try everything once is deeply ingrained in American thinking. In fact, Americans are so hesitant to choose a definite course of action without trying all of the alternatives, that Winston Churchill once said “You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

Many famous Americans possessed of a try everything once spirit. American actress Mae West once said “I’ll try anything once, twice if I like it, three times to make sure.” In 1920, G.B. Manly offered to take American humorist Will Rogers on an airplane ride. After the ride, Rogers remarked: “Try anything once. Try some things oftener. When you goin’ again?”

American President Franklin D. Roosevelt also had the willingness to try anything – something which is now said to have greatly attributed to his ability to help America out of the Great Depression. FDR’s wife Eleanor once commented about him that “He recognized the difficulties and often said that, while he did not know the answer, he was completely confident that there was an answer and that one had to try until one either found it for himself or got it from someone else.”

Americans take a similar viewpoint towards products. They don’t want something that will last forever, but just long enough for them to try it, and see how it compares to other products that they’ve used. Then they want to move on to try another product.

Pareto

The Pareto principle: Also known as the 80-20 rule, stating that in many situations approximately 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes.

Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist, documented in the early 1900s that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Pareto went on to observe that 20% of the pea pods in his garden contained 80% of the peas. It has become a common rule of thumb in business that 80% of sales come from 20% of clients.

The 80-20 rule could be a metaphor about the American approach to many things, or at least about an element or aspect of the Americans approach. Americans tend not to be perfectionists. Not because they do not recognize and honor striving for the best. But because in many cases attaining, reaching, accomplishing that extra 5% is in many cases “simply not worth it”.

Worth. Value. Does the customer want that extra degree of engineering excellence? Is it necessary to calculate that many digits behind the decimal point? Is that depth of analysis necessary in order to make a decision?

80% is often enough. For Americans, depending on the situation, 60% is enough. Depending on the risk-benefit relationship, even less is enough.

Clever

Intelligent. Latin intelligens, to recognize, understand, discern; smart, talented, capable; think abstractly, use reason, then act.

Clever. From English clever. Intelligent, tactical; flexible, adaptable; to recognize all available options.

Smartphone. An English term quickly adopted by the German people because it so succinctly describes the product. There is no German equivalent.

Mitdenken. Literally think with. To think independently, to anticipate; thoughtful, reflective.

Upgrades

There are a lot of American websites that describe ways to make use of old products after upgrading to newer models. If you type “creative ways to reuse things” into Google, you are met with over 20 million websites with such titles as “40 Awesome Ways to Reuse Old Stuff” and “534 Ways to Reuse Things You’d Normally Throw Away.” These sites have suggestions for reusing everything from bicycles to wrenches, and even to fruit peels.

Some of the suggestions listed on these websites include: Using an old bicycle as a sink stand. Turning an old cassette tape into a coin purse. Bending old wrenches into wall hooks. Cutting old credit cards into guitar picks. Turning an old suitcase into a chair. Grinding old egg shells to make sidewalk chalk.

Not in Kansas anymore

In May of 2007, a grade 5 tornado (the highest possible) destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas, killing 13 people, injuring more than 60 others and flattening 95 percent of the town structures (while seriously damaging the other 5 percent). The tornado was estimated to be 1.7 miles (2.7 km) wide at its base, and traveled almost 22 miles (35 km). Wind from the twister was estimated at 205 mph (330 km/h).

In May of 2011, a grade 5 tornado ravaged the city of Joplin, Missouri. Although this tornado was only .75 miles at its base, and traveled 6 miles on the ground, it also had winds estimated at over 200 mph, and, because this tornado hit a city rather than a small town, it had far more devastating figures of destruction: 158 people died, over 1000 people were injured, and around 7,000 homes were destroyed (not including businesses and public buildings).

According to the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) an average of 1253 tornadoes occur in the United States every year. Although more common in “tornado alley” (the Midwest), tornados have been documented in every state in the U.S. After the United States, the country with the largest average number of annual cyclones is Canada, with around 100 twisters.

If there’s a relatively high probability that your home will be completely destroyed in a storm, then long-lasting won’t be one of your main concerns when buying it or having it built for you.