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China's Millennials Are Happy to Own Nothing
- Joof 11y agoBring up communes in America and everyone assumes you are crazy or in a cult. It's not like I just think it would be optimal to share a kitchen or bulk meals and maybe actually talk to my neighbors. Living in tiny isolated groups is the American dream.
- marssaxman 11y agoIt is an American dream, maybe, but not the only one. It's certainly not the one prominent among my friends and family, who are steadily clustering ever closer together. Cohousing is popular. I didn't buy a house because I wanted a place to myself; I bought a house because I wanted to have enough space to have people over for dinner and throw parties. A house big enough for that is too big for just me, so I share it with friends. Much better than all of us living separately in apartments, or (ugh!) in entire separate houses.
- zhemao 11y agoJoof means the classical American dream, which involves owning a house in the suburbs with a spacious well-groomed lawn and white picket fence. And of course a car, because absolutely nothing is in walking distance anymore. I agree this is no longer the most prevalent aspiration among Americans younger than 30.
- aswanson 11y agoI'm a gen X human that wishes I had bucked that script. It's socially isolating and an outdated economically given the dynamism of employment these days. Shout out to gen y on for calling bullshit on that schema.
- Joof 11y agoOh god, the lawn. I'll never understand the lawn thing. Space to hangout outside is good, a garden or landscape is a cool hobby, but a lawn is a time/money sink that doesn't look that great, is a poor use of water and I'm allergic to anyway. It's also a great way to get passive aggressive letters from the home owners association.
- makomk 11y agoI think it's something you brought over from England, which actually has the right climate for lawns.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- fweespeech 11y agoTbh, I've only lived in places with every bedroom rented to a different tenant after I moved out from home. Communal living is very good but I'd much prefer the "American" version where its essentially 3-5 roommates I can trust than a much larger version like in the article.
- ryandrake 11y agoGreat if it works for you, but buddy I could never go back to having roommates, sharing a bathroom or a kitchen, or even having a shared wall with a neighbor. I like my privacy and security, and no, "my bedroom door closes" doesn't meet the bar.
- toomuchtodo 11y agoI'm considering building a tech worker commune in the mountains of North Carolina. Solar/wind generation on site, fiber connectivity, etc. Communal kitchen/coworking space. Your home would be a tiny house you build or pull to the site. Your living arrangements are what you make of it. I've lived in a 4000 sq foot home in the suburbs, and I've lived in a condo in a major metro (Chicago). Nuts to possessions and competing on living space, I just want to spend time with good people.
- vijayr 11y agoI just want to spend time with good people This! Your idea is awesome. But why restrict only to tech workers? At the least, you could let all digital workers stay?
- toomuchtodo 11y agoHonestly, its open to anyone. Not many non-folks have a need for solid connectivity in the middle of nowhere though.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoThere are two problems here. One is when the people are less than good. You get 5% jerks, and they can ruin your commune. The second problem is when you're at least somewhat introverted. There comes a time when I no longer want to spend time with people, even if they're good.
- jpmec 11y agoDo you have a wife or children? What about senior relatives? What about childrens' children? I think we Americans will soon see the multi-generational household as more the norm, especially with the high cost of care for our elderly.
- sotojuan 11y agoThis opened my eyes because the Chinese international students in my university (the only contact I have with people from that country) buy the most extravagant stuff. I'm somewhat knowledgeable about fashion brands, and I see them wear what would amount to $1000+ in outfits daily. And that's just clothing I recognize. "Wanting to own everything" (that is trendy!) is a common stereotype of them in my university. That said, in general they're humble and nice. Guess I'm only getting exposed to the Chinese 1%, so thanks for this article.
- mhurron 11y ago> Guess I'm only getting exposed to the Chinese 1% That's probably part of it. Of course, to extrapolate large trends such as 'China's Millennials are happy to own nothing' based on 5000 or so people without looking into their ability to own things would be just as silly an sweeping generalization to make.
- zhemao 11y agoEh, while it's true that most Chinese students who study abroad have wealthy parents, I think the article vastly overstates the prevalence of the "You+ attitude". I think the majority of Chinese would still like to own nice things if they could. My cousins on my mother's side of the family live in Shanghai, and they definitely like to buy designer and name brand goods.
- z2 11y agoI always figured that China's consumerism itself is a fashion trend. After a generation of deprivation, all this branding and the social status they promise are attractive simply it's so novel. It will hopefully get old soon, as it has for the people in the article.
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- EC1 11y ago$1000 outfit is standard. Boots that don't suck, jeans, jackets, sweaters, watches, accessories add up super quickly.
- jsn117 11y agonot according to the line outside your local gucci store
- bduerst 11y agoThis is more of a smaller counter-culture group. The majority of millenials living the metropolitan areas of China are not of this mentality.
- reedlaw 11y agoI agree. From my experience there is more pressure than ever for young people to own a house and a car. It's almost a prerequisite to marriage. Even in big cities where it's unreasonable to expect a young person to be able to afford these things there is still a pressure which most often falls upon the parents.
- cryoshon 11y agoFTA: "Faced with a widening wealth gap and the slowest economic growth in more than two decades, millions like Xiong find themselves priced out of the big cities and are rejecting the consumer trappings of a modern lifestyle. Instead, they’re embracing the sharing economy to a far greater degree than their Western counterparts." Ah, so rising rent and stagnant wages are causing reduction in lifestyle among the youthful. The article could be shortened to "people have less money, so they are forced to make do with less." There are many discussions about these cultural memes spawned by downward economic trends; some items are useful (sharing a power tool instead of purchasing), but they're the result of funding being constrained and people's expectations adjusting downward as a result. These people are not sworn to poverty, so I doubt they are actually happy to own nothing, so much as grudgingly adapting to owning less than their parents. EDIT: Communes can make a comeback gracefully as part of this economic trend, but it's still important to understand that generations losing wealth isn't a positive thing.
- morsch 11y agoDecoupling personal happiness from accumulation of consumer goods as an end in itself seems like both a positive and a conceivable thing to me, even if it were a cultural meme with roots that are out of people's direct control such as an economic downturn. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
- beatpanda 11y agoWe're not in an economic downturn, either in the U.S. or China. Workers just aren't seeing the benefits of a return to economic growth.
- AnimalMuppet 11y agoWhich, from the workers' POV, is the same as still being in a downturn.
- dmix 11y agoIf x age group, social group, or "middle class" is experiencing an economic downturn - but the country as a whole is stable or upward - are they not still in an economic downturn? This is a very common phenomenon with statistics... for example I frequently come across people citing that x time in history had early death rates - so you likely wouldn't have lived past 40 - without explaining the majority of deaths were due to infant death from disease. But if they in fact made it past early childhood then those projected maximum age numbers were not relevant. This is why it's important to not plan based on global averages. One reason why conducting "cohort analysis" is very important in business analytics.
- Animats 11y ago"You+" has franchised the frat house. Why not? It's the next step after "brogrammers".
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- racl101 11y agoI would call it more managing their expectations and/or settling rather than being happy. I'm sure if you offered any, if not most, of these people a winning lottery ticket of great fortune they'll surely take it. This goes for millennials here as well. Just cause they're settling for living in mom's basement doesn't mean they wouldn't rather own their home and their own car. It just happens that living at mom's beats living on the park bench. The thing is there's two kinds of people: those who will stay in their comfort zone, and those who see want more out of life and will raise hell to get what they want. Just cause these millennials don't raise hell doesn't necessarily mean they're happy. They're just content enough.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoWhoa, I too have around two pairs of shoes (for every season, grand total of maybe five) and never owned a car. "For as little as about $500 a month, You+ residents gain access to a private room with a bathroom" Whoa whoa, for $500 a month, I imagine you could rent a full apartment mostly anywhere in China, could not you? Sounds like a very expensive way to own nothing. Having said that, sharing apartments is all rage where I live. It's cheaper to rent 3 bedroom apartment and divide the price between 3-6 people than renting one bedroom flat for yourself only. In places where housing is expensive this saves young people without stellar paychecks. Company is also nice when you get to choose who to live with.
- guard-of-terra 11y ago"These days, he shares a bedroom with three others, each paying about $300 a month." Now that sounds totally overpriced. Is Beijing such an expensive city already?
- kuschku 11y agoIn my city (in Germany, even!) the housing situation isn’t better. "9m² apartment in a suburban house, on the attic – 150€/month, time limited offer of 3 months". "11m² apartment subsidized by government, kitchen and bathroom shared with 30 other apartments, 350€/month" Housing just is expensive.
- svachalek 11y agoYes. That sounds like a fairly middle class part of Beijing, the expensive areas (toward the center) would run 3X that, or more.
- beatpanda 11y agoIt is depressing that my generation is framing a forced downgrade in our quality of life as a trendy lifestyle choice. In both the U.S. and China the economy is growing, but a greater and greater percentage of those gains go to the owners of capital. Instead of demanding a higher percentage of the product of our labor, we're content to take what we're given and downgrade our expectations. I am a "highly paid" software engineer who works in San Francisco. Plugging in 30% of my take-home pay into Craigslist yields an anemic, depressing list of available properties. So instead of getting ripped off by some scumbag landlord, I built a tiny house in someone's back yard. If I could afford it, I would rent something nice, or even buy a house, but even with my 6-figure salary, it's not possible. And this is a scam. My generation, even those of us that are getting the best deal going under Capitalism, are getting ripped off. and it's time we started talking about it that way instead of pretending like we're "living with less" because of some moral or ethical or lifestyle imperative. And I should be clear -- I think Americans can stand to live with less, I think that co-housing is a legitimate option and I'd choose it if it were available to me. I also think that Americans should be seeing the benefit of increased worker productivity in their compensation, instead of 100% of that productivity increase flowing to the owners of capital.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoPeople are increasingly trying to crowd into a depressingly small and shrinking list of places. Mostly megapolises like London or hubs like SF, where they then forced to live far enough that commute takes hours and their job takes the rest. Money concentrate and people feel the need to concentrate as well. Frankly I don't want to live that way. And I'm on my way to not to.
- ghaff 11y agoSome may indeed not have a real choice for whatever reason but to live in a very high cost-of-living area. However, many do have choice but choose to live in core urban areas of a handful of mostly coastal cities. This is a somewhat new thing in SF and has certainly intensified in recent years. However, the new grad who lived in squalor in Manhattan because they couldn't imagine living in Queens or (heaven forbid) New Jersey goes back decades. And many, many people don't live in those most expensive cities. There probably is an increasing concentration in some industries. But there's often a choice nonetheless.
- ilaksh 11y agohttp://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage http://runvnc.github.io/tinyvillage
- marme 11y agoThe big difference between this and communist living of their parents generation could be summed up in one word "hope". They live in crappy communal living nearly identical to what their parents had but for them it is temporary just until they get their big break or their startup takes off. They all dream of living in a mansion when they get rich so they have hope. For their parents the government assigned apartment was the end of the line, there was no hope of getting a better place and you just lived with it and most people hated it. So when you choose to live this way you have the choice to leave, even though you most likely wont, but it is that choice that makes it so much better