this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2024
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[–] kometes 47 points 11 months ago (8 children)

Ugh. Where did 660 feet come from? Where did 66 feet come from? A line of potatoes (linear) to measure an acre (area)? A strip of land 43,560 x 1 ft is an acre requiring 87k+ potatoes.

Also, 18 homes wont fit on an acre.

This graphic is fucking awful.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

An acre is not just a unit of area measurement but has a traditional shape or aspect ratio per acre, based on the land plots it was used for.

1 acre is traditionally 60 ft x 660 ft, also known as 1 chain by 1 furlong.

It's similar to if you said you could lay X potatoes across a football field. Yes a football field is an area but it also has a defined length.

[–] Glowstick 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I'm no expert but i believe that's not how the term is used today. Like if a house is advertised as coming on a quarter acre of land, that says absolutely nothing about the dimensions of that land

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

True, I was just explaining where those numbers came from.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

660 feet is a furlong, which comes from one furrow length. It’s the distance two oxen can pull a plow (creating a furrow), without stopping to rest. Then the oxen and person standing atop the plow could have a little rest before turning around to plow the next furrow. Not sure how many furrows but if you repeat this process all day, you’ll have plowed an acre. Potatoes did not exist to farmers when this land measurement was in use. But 66 x 660 is the original definition of an acre, and the only reasonable explanation for why we have 43,560

In California we measure water in Acre Feet. I guess if you know how many acres you have, and how many inches of water your crops need, I guess you’ll know how many acre feet you need.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

660 * 8 is also 5280, or one mile.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago

That's bull spit. I've trained my oxen to go 777 ft.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

It is a chain (66ft) and 10 chains 660ft. They are historically important units for land surveying (and relevant today because of that). The measurement is nonsense, but the graph makes sense because an acre can be defined as 1 chain by 10 chains or 66ftx660ft=4356sqft

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

These numbers all come from people who preferred 12 and 60 as their working base numbers, not 10. A lot of it becomes really elegant once you understand that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Did they use duodecimal or sexagesimal numeral systems?

66 feet does not match that, also its 1 chain * 10 chains.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 11 months ago

and 10 chains = 1 furlong = 1/8 mile

[–] [email protected] -1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Ya if you know that, you know what I'm talking about and just want to argue.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I do think a duodecimal system is elegant, I don't see it being used with these numbers.

edit: ok, 660/12=55

[–] Thrashy 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

You can divide 2400 square feet into an acre 18 times, but yeah... like, in most metros, even the kind of small detached single-family home you'd find in a inner-ring suburb is going to sit on a 5,000-8,000 square foot lot. Typical suburban lot sizes are more like a 1/4 acre.

This isn't to say that a McMansion on a quarter acre of land is a good thing, but just as a point of reference, if you're imagining a neighborhood of 15 to 20 homes and somebody tells you "that's about an acre" you're going to be off by an order of magnitude.

[–] TheIllustrativeMan 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Most 2000sf+ homes, even in rural areas, are 2+ stories. That would leave room for yards. Not big yards, but yards.

[–] Thrashy 1 points 11 months ago

My 750sf circa-1960 starter home in a turn-of-century streetcar suburb sits on a 7,500sf lot, and that's relatively small for the area. You'd have to be talking about urban rowhouses as seen in East Coast cities to approach anything like a 2500sf lot size for a single family home.

[–] postmateDumbass -2 points 11 months ago

You struggled with word problems in algebra classes didnt you?

[–] Anticorp 2 points 11 months ago

Probably, as long as they have absolutely no yards, and no way to get to the front door.

[–] kamenlady 2 points 11 months ago

^average SIZED homes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

18*2,400=43,200, so they’d fit, but not nicely. It also doesn’t take external wall width into account, but that’s 20 extra feet per house for the outside walls.

That said, at least in my area, most of the houses in that size range are two story, so who knows what the footprint would be. Agreed, unhelpful metric.