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Consider: for pretty much any animal I'm aware of, there's a notion of the minimum amount of space it needs to live normally. Somehow for people we've convinced
by eslaught 7y ago
Consider: for pretty much any animal I'm aware of, there's a notion of the minimum amount of space it needs to live normally. Somehow for people we've convinced ourselves that there is no such minimum (or it's so small as to be absurd).
- gumby 7y agoBut within a species (I'm thinking of human's naturally) there seem to be cultural variances.
- nradov 7y agoSome cultures have learned to tolerate minimal personal space as a necessary evil. But when people from those cultures get wealthy they almost always choose to buy more space and privacy.
- esoterica 7y agoThat is an untrue generalization. Every large city has several high income, high density neighborhoods where wealthy people live when they prefer shorter commutes and access to amenities to larger living spaces.
- wearenotsafe 7y agoDo these wealthy people you speak of live in studio apartments?
- esoterica 7y agoThey live in modestly sized apartments that are typical of urban an urban lifestyle, not the giant isolated rural plots of land that half this thread is insisting are necessary to preserve one’s sanity because they can’t differentiate between personal preference and fundamental aspects of the human condition.
- esoterica 7y agoWhy are you narcissistic enough to believe that your idea of the “minimum amount of space” is the canonically correct one, and that city dwellers are idiots who don’t know how to live their lives correctly?
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoSo you at least accept the theory that human beings are not unique from other organisms regarding needed a minimum amount of space and that finding the amount is a valid goal?
- esoterica 7y agoThe amount of space an animal requires refers to the total amount of space available for them to roam. It is not analogous to the size of a person’s home because people can leave their houses any time they want.
- CompanionCuuube 7y agoNo, but it does relate to high density living where the home range of a person is more condensed. Additionally, we have studies regarding the negative effect of visitor density and intensity on animals.
- balfirevic 7y agoWhat do you consider acceptable minimal amount of space for a human being?
- eslaught 7y agoI don't consider myself qualified to answer that question, but I do think someone should study it. It would be interesting to try to correlate various empirical outcomes with available living space (though of course it will be tricky to control for all the variables, because I'm sure this correlates with e.g. wealth).
- imtringued 7y agoAt a minimum physically separated kitchen, bathroom, living room, bedroom. So I'd say somewhere around 40sqm for a single person and 10sqm for every additional person. Anything less is a deal breaker or only acceptable in the short term during college, etc.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- closeparen 7y agoCars have not been around that long. If humans are adapted for a particular density, it's one we managed on foot and horseback. That would put it much higher than contemporary America's legal limits. The masses were certainly not doing 15 mile daily commutes in the ancestral environment. If you're interested in the historical/humanistic perspective on urban planning more generally, check out the New Urbanists. Understanding pre-car settlements, how and why they worked, long-term norms, etc. is kind of their thing. It's also worthwhile to visit some old (500+ year) built environments in person.
- eslaught 7y agoI agree that the settlements themselves would have been relatively dense. However, this is missing two critical elements: they were (a) tiny by modern standards, and (b) surrounded by vast expanses of open, uninhabited space. That meant that, while you wouldn't have necessarily had much in the way of privacy in your own dwelling, you could easily walk out of the village and seek solitude for as long and as often as you wanted. I think this makes a huge difference to social dynamics and we basically haven't properly coped with it since cities of any substantial size have existed.