4 ms·
This is interesting. It's the kind of topic that can easily be interpreted as anyone into their pet big issue and/or worldview, dangerously so. This could be a
by netcan 11y ago
This is interesting. It's the kind of topic that can easily be interpreted as anyone into their pet big issue and/or worldview, dangerously so.
This could be about The Plight of The Middle class and the cost of housing. Are we really returning to a world of boarding houses? It could be about a less is more world where people are discarding processions, home and contents and living a smaller, more environmental and simpler existence. It could be about demographic and cultural shifts. More single people. It could be about the decline of extended families, communities and multigenerational households. The continued accession of cities…
Anyway, interesting.
Beyond anything else, I think this points at how much of any issue housing is these days. Manufactures goods have dropped in prices for generations to the point where looking back a few generations to a time when cutlery and crockery, salt and other things were wealth is ridiculous. Transport has improved more slowly. Air travel has certainly become a lot cheaper and international travel has become more accessible over the years. So have services like restaurants, gyms and lots of recreational goods. Information has been revolutionized. But housing, it's not really improving with time. We're not better off than our grandparents in many cases.
- kiba 11y agoMore like real estate. The amount of land is fixed, after all. And some are more valuable than others. Even the materials used to build houses had gotten cheaper, presumably. Skyscrappers and high density housing can increase supply but only if regulations and market conditions allow it.
- Zigurd 11y agoHere is a list of cities by population density. They're not the ones you would expect: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_population_d... It is possible to have lo-rise, high-density. As for "regulations and market conditions?" Everyplace has those.
- umanwizard 11y agoThat list doesn't tell us much, because what counts as the official city limits is completely arbitrary. There are some parts of London for example that are very suburban.
- droidist2 11y agoExactly. San Francisco is just twice the size of Manhattan and Houston is about 200 times as big of an area.
- gluggymug 11y agoHong Kong has closet sized apartments. That trend didn't always get the favourable write ups though. E.g. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/photos-life-hong-kong-tiniest-apartment-article-1.1273112 http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/photos-lif... Can't wait for the next trend after this one for the neo hipsters: hobo-housing. It's so affordable. You just push a vintage shopping trolley loaded with your stuff to a homeless shelter. Make an app to find the closest bunk bed!
- zardo 11y agoAre there any capsule hotels in the US?
- ghaff 11y agoI think the short answer is no--not in the Japanese sense. There are hotels optimized around small (say 170 sf total) rooms. But in most (all?) cases they still have private bathrooms and you can certainly stand up and walk around. They're sometimes called "pod hotels" but that's sort of marketing; lots of hotels in a city like New York have pretty cramped rooms.