When the conversation drifts to questions of whether “size” matters, my hope is that we’re focusing on whether some banks and assorted financial services department stores are “too big to fail.”

In the alternative, the “size matters” thing might be about sex and stuff, which makes me nervous, or the adequacy of my Banker & Tradesman paycheck, which no one around here ever wants to talk about.

Another explosive and murky area of the “size” debate portfolio is residential zoning, where administrative law and regulation and snob appeal and housing costs and morality and septic system capacity and befuddled zoning commissioners all come together to decide not only whether size matters, but also, whether it should matter.

Town officials in Marlborough are currently crawling around on the sod outside City Hall, tape measures in hand, to determine exactly how small a fifth-of-an-acre might be, in response to a developer’s request to change the zoning regs a wee bit to allow houses to be built on what, in snobby, suburban circles, would be considered a postage-stamp-sized lot.

In the America of previous generations, such a request would have been greeted with instant suspicion, if not outright hostility. The suburban dream was a lawn and a basketball hoop and a lot large enough for a moat, so that a man’s home really could be his castle.

Motivation and self-interest are not always easy to determine when local land-use officials mull the merits of lot size. To be sure, for towns that are sufficiently snobby, large lots add to residential prestige and (the deep, dark, dirty little secret) large lots often increase residential development prices sufficiently to keep out the riff-raff from the urban nightmares and marginal ring suburbs.

This, again, at least in theory, was the impetus for the Massachusetts anti-snob zoning law, Chapter 40B, which sort of, kind of, allows developers to build a damn nuclear power plant in your town – as long as they construct 25 percent of their residential development for moderate-income mortals.

Also, at least in theory, large lots mean fewer houses, which means fewer children in the public schools, which, in places other than Massachusetts, often means lower property taxes.

A Different Tune

But there is a new breed of “urban planners” adrift in the land, committed to “smart growth” and hostile to “urban sprawl.” This group of core-city lovers advocate for increased residential density – for mass transit to take us hither and yon (because hither and yon won’t be so far away, if we all don’t live on four-acre lots).

In response to more flexible zoning and “progressive” instincts that insist we all should live together in densely populated discomfort, the “gated community” has become popular in many parts of the country. The individual lots may be large or small, but when the gate gets closed and the surly security guard is in place, the residents are free from those much different than themselves.

As the urban planning guru Jane Jacobs put it in her, “Death and Life of Great American Cities,” “middle income projects as they age tend to contain a significant (or at least articulate) proportion of people who are fearful of contact outside their class.”

What is refreshing in Marlborough is, at least to date, there is little fear-mongering and much honesty about the merits and flaws of the small-lot development.

As the president of the Marlborough City Council was quoted as saying in the Worcester Business Journal, “the downside is some people believe it will bring in much lower-cost housing, and there’s a concern by some neighbors about what that would do to the community.”

And then there are the environmental types who have often negotiated a side benefit to such small-lot, densely populated developments. Put those houses close enough together and you create more “open space” for squirrels and other non-voting residents.

Assuming the conversation in Marlborough doesn’t deteriorate into ranting about race and class; assuming the debate focuses on reasonable differences of opinion about the sanctity of existing zoning on community quality of life; the “solution” may well be a compromise. Mr. Developer, how about quarter-acre lots, or third-of-an-acre lots?