IT’S TIME TO TRADE DOWN—you know, the opposite of “trade up,” that consumerist jollywoggler apron-tied to myth-taken aspirations of the oh so GOOD LIFE. And I don’t mean “trade down” as nakedly showcased in a recent New Yorker story about Fred “Two Buck Chuck” Franzia; in Franzia’s take, getting cheap swill, or “super-value” wine, to the public is somehow sticking it to the man (well, the filthy-lucre-rich man in Napa, at least). I’m talking about the “less is more” and “simplify” movement as manifest rather remarkably in the move to small houses—very small houses—for which a market is growing with leaps and bounds. Read More »