McMansionitis Strikes

Australians also use the term McManison to describe oversized houses. Western Monmouth County is probably the heart of McMansion country in the Shore area, although those houses were built on old farmland. We are also seeing McMansions replacing older construction in some of the eastern Monmouth County, especially in Little Silver and Shrewsbury. I would not exactly call the big houses going up on old lots in Rumson “McMansions” since many of the lots and older houses there are already big to begin with. Many houses in Rumson, for the most part, are real mansions.


["McMansionisation" is especially prevalent in wealthy towns with a hot real estate market. "It goes on all over the country in select neighbourhoods," said Robert Lang, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, which tracks urban growth trends. "It's reached a critical point."

With little open space left, older neighbourhoods close to mass transit and cultural activities are increasingly in demand. "People want the neighbourhood, but they don't want the house," Mr. Lang said. "There wasn't that much of a premium to do it until recently."]