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How does this kind of writing still make it to publication? This isn't about generational shifts, changing aesthetics, or trends in home layout. This is about f

How does this kind of writing still make it to publication? This isn't about generational shifts, changing aesthetics, or trends in home layout. This is about falling wages, soaring costs of living in urban areas, and a decrease in QoL for the purportedly-mobile section of the working class that is the implicit subject of this article. Portraying this as being a decision of taste rather than necessity is misleading. Very few people are willingly choosing to have less rooms in their house; our grand paring-down is the result of tight belts and empty wallets, not a nod to minimalist aesthetics.

dpark 10y ago
> our grand paring-down is the result of tight belts and empty wallets, not a nod to minimalist aesthetics. Grand paring down? Since when? The typical US home has pretty consistently grown in size year over year for at least the last 4 decades, gaining about 250 sqft every decade. http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/ http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...
- HamwakHall 10y ago
  I see a lot of numbers about 'new single-family houses.' What population do you think is living in a building that fits that description? According to the 2010 U.S. census, ~80% of the population lives in an urban area, and all projections hold that share to have increased. That's 80+% of the US population that is living in non-single-family buildings, many of which are being remodeled to support greater population density and smaller individual units.
  - dpark 10y ago
    > That's 80+% of the US population that is living in non-single-family buildings Urban doesn't include just multifamily units. I live in a single family home in Seattle. So do tens of thousands of others. Ditto for San Francisco and many other cities. Multifamily units are also growing. The data only goes back 15 years but they're bigger now. Check page 448: https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2015.pdf https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2015.pdf
forgottenpass 10y ago
How does this kind of writing still make it to publication? The publisher doesn't have standards, they needed something to surround the ads. The author might have been more serious about the topic than trying to fill space to sell ads, but lacked the tools to bring that insight. The editor in chief should keep them on the bench learning, covering topics they can speak meaningfully on, or should have hired them in the first place. I doubt this publication has an editor in chief (though there is a distinct possibility that someone ineffectual might hold that title).
return0 10y ago
i would think that the author himself works from a laptop in 5 different part-time jobs , so he has no time to produce good articles , but no, he appears to be employed exclusively by bloomberg.
tajen 10y ago
— When I was a student, I barely had room for the desk and the bed, said the 32-year-old German engineer, – Well, when I was a student, we were two people in that room, 2 desks, a sink and a fridge; and our showers were shared between 4 people, I said, with my coarse French accent, recalling memories of water dripping off our roof in winter. - Ahem, started the Russian, I was in a top engineering school in the countryside of Moscow. We were 3 in that room. We didn't have water, we had 18 shared taps downstairs for 300 people. Electricity was scarce with no ground plug, so in the heat of the winter, when the frozen wind blew on our windows, everyone used their secondary heating and electricity would go off for the night. The water dripping from the ceiling? It didn't drip. It was frozen. Of course costs and wages need to be studied, but what I see all across those examples is desk. No-one in good engineering schools would seriously work on their bed, no matter how little room they had.

dpark 10y ago

> our grand paring-down is the result of tight belts and empty wallets, not a nod to minimalist aesthetics. Grand paring down? Since when? The typical US home has pretty consistently grown in size year over year for at least the last 4 decades, gaining about 250 sqft every decade. http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-square-feet-larger-than-in-1973-and-living-space-per-person-has-nearly-doubled/ http://www.aei.org/publication/new-us-homes-today-are-1000-s...

HamwakHall 10y ago
I see a lot of numbers about 'new single-family houses.' What population do you think is living in a building that fits that description? According to the 2010 U.S. census, ~80% of the population lives in an urban area, and all projections hold that share to have increased. That's 80+% of the US population that is living in non-single-family buildings, many of which are being remodeled to support greater population density and smaller individual units.
- dpark 10y ago
  > That's 80+% of the US population that is living in non-single-family buildings Urban doesn't include just multifamily units. I live in a single family home in Seattle. So do tens of thousands of others. Ditto for San Francisco and many other cities. Multifamily units are also growing. The data only goes back 15 years but they're bigger now. Check page 448: https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2015.pdf https://www.census.gov/construction/chars/pdf/c25ann2015.pdf

forgottenpass 10y ago

How does this kind of writing still make it to publication? The publisher doesn't have standards, they needed something to surround the ads. The author might have been more serious about the topic than trying to fill space to sell ads, but lacked the tools to bring that insight. The editor in chief should keep them on the bench learning, covering topics they can speak meaningfully on, or should have hired them in the first place. I doubt this publication has an editor in chief (though there is a distinct possibility that someone ineffectual might hold that title).

return0 10y ago

i would think that the author himself works from a laptop in 5 different part-time jobs , so he has no time to produce good articles , but no, he appears to be employed exclusively by bloomberg.

tajen 10y ago

— When I was a student, I barely had room for the desk and the bed, said the 32-year-old German engineer, – Well, when I was a student, we were two people in that room, 2 desks, a sink and a fridge; and our showers were shared between 4 people, I said, with my coarse French accent, recalling memories of water dripping off our roof in winter. - Ahem, started the Russian, I was in a top engineering school in the countryside of Moscow. We were 3 in that room. We didn't have water, we had 18 shared taps downstairs for 300 people. Electricity was scarce with no ground plug, so in the heat of the winter, when the frozen wind blew on our windows, everyone used their secondary heating and electricity would go off for the night. The water dripping from the ceiling? It didn't drip. It was frozen. Of course costs and wages need to be studied, but what I see all across those examples is desk. No-one in good engineering schools would seriously work on their bed, no matter how little room they had.