3 ms·

It is dystopian, though. “Shove all the poor people in tiny boxes, then stack the boxes on top of each other.” That’ll fix ‘em. Maybe in our plague-ridden new

It is dystopian, though. “Shove all the poor people in tiny boxes, then stack the boxes on top of each other.” That’ll fix ‘em. Maybe in our plague-ridden new world order the idea of dense urban areas is just flawed. City living is great for the wealthy and indentured servitude for pretty much everyone else.

curryst 6y ago
They really aren't that small. A single wide is 500-1200 sqft, which is fairly competitive with apartments in major cities. A double wide is 1000-2000 sqft, which is competitive with most homes. High rises are basically just bespoke stacks of trailers; the units are just planned by an architect and custom-created, rather than being pre-fabricated and stacked. I would probably live in a trailer if they were priced cheaper than other options and not in a terrible area. The latter is usually what kills it, as most cities have zoning laws that relegate mobile home parks to areas far from any kind of development. Another complication is that in hot areas (the dense urban areas), most of your rent is going towards location, not to recoup the cost of building the thing. I have no doubt that in SF's financial district, they can probably recoup the costs of the building in a small number of years. I wouldn't be surprised if the land they're built on is worth more than the building on top of it. It doesn't make any sense to put up a building that's 10% cheaper, but ugly, when it only makes the whole project 0.1% cheaper.
- ghaff 6y ago
  >It doesn't make any sense to put up a building that's 10% cheaper, but ugly, when it only makes the whole project 0.1% cheaper. That's the problem with most of the cheap/tiny/etc. housing schemes. By the time you account for whatever combination of land cost, overhead of common areas/access, utility infrastructure, maintenance, etc., you now have housing that is often substandard in some way that isn't actually much cheaper (and is going to be harder to rent/sell/re-sell).
  - throwaway316943 6y ago
    If you ask me, we’re trying to modularize and standardize the wrong things. Housing will always benefit from being customized to the people inhabiting it. Shared spaces and utilities benefit more from generalization since they are used by a variety of people for a variety of purposes. We should figure out the essence of infrastructure and community spaces and then mass produce those as easy to assemble units so you could build a community hub wherever one is needed.
    - ianai 6y ago
      Ah but market factors probably don’t make that targetable. For infrastructure, much of the cost is probably planning and labor, as a guess. It’s probably not standardized as easily. But I could see modular designs helping theoretically.
      - throwaway316943 6y ago
        The trouble lies in it being a purchase for a group of people I think. Legal and social structures that make that possible on the scale I’m thinking aren’t in common use. You’d need some more mature form of an intentional community structured as a corporation with joint ownership and voting rights. These orgs do exist but they’re all bespoke and only beginning to organize. We need a tried and true system that any group of people can incorporate under, buy land and set up shop. The mind reels at the obstacles currently in place for such an undertaking. But if something like that does become common then there will be a market for hyper local infrastructure e.g. solar, well field, septic, networking, recycling and waste disposal, small theatres, communal kitchens, gardens, walking and biking paths, schools, workshops and motor pools. What you’d want would essentially be a self sufficient university campus in a box, available in whole or in part.

curryst 6y ago

They really aren't that small. A single wide is 500-1200 sqft, which is fairly competitive with apartments in major cities. A double wide is 1000-2000 sqft, which is competitive with most homes. High rises are basically just bespoke stacks of trailers; the units are just planned by an architect and custom-created, rather than being pre-fabricated and stacked. I would probably live in a trailer if they were priced cheaper than other options and not in a terrible area. The latter is usually what kills it, as most cities have zoning laws that relegate mobile home parks to areas far from any kind of development. Another complication is that in hot areas (the dense urban areas), most of your rent is going towards location, not to recoup the cost of building the thing. I have no doubt that in SF's financial district, they can probably recoup the costs of the building in a small number of years. I wouldn't be surprised if the land they're built on is worth more than the building on top of it. It doesn't make any sense to put up a building that's 10% cheaper, but ugly, when it only makes the whole project 0.1% cheaper.

ghaff 6y ago
>It doesn't make any sense to put up a building that's 10% cheaper, but ugly, when it only makes the whole project 0.1% cheaper. That's the problem with most of the cheap/tiny/etc. housing schemes. By the time you account for whatever combination of land cost, overhead of common areas/access, utility infrastructure, maintenance, etc., you now have housing that is often substandard in some way that isn't actually much cheaper (and is going to be harder to rent/sell/re-sell).
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  If you ask me, we’re trying to modularize and standardize the wrong things. Housing will always benefit from being customized to the people inhabiting it. Shared spaces and utilities benefit more from generalization since they are used by a variety of people for a variety of purposes. We should figure out the essence of infrastructure and community spaces and then mass produce those as easy to assemble units so you could build a community hub wherever one is needed.
  - ianai 6y ago
    Ah but market factors probably don’t make that targetable. For infrastructure, much of the cost is probably planning and labor, as a guess. It’s probably not standardized as easily. But I could see modular designs helping theoretically.
    - throwaway316943 6y ago
      The trouble lies in it being a purchase for a group of people I think. Legal and social structures that make that possible on the scale I’m thinking aren’t in common use. You’d need some more mature form of an intentional community structured as a corporation with joint ownership and voting rights. These orgs do exist but they’re all bespoke and only beginning to organize. We need a tried and true system that any group of people can incorporate under, buy land and set up shop. The mind reels at the obstacles currently in place for such an undertaking. But if something like that does become common then there will be a market for hyper local infrastructure e.g. solar, well field, septic, networking, recycling and waste disposal, small theatres, communal kitchens, gardens, walking and biking paths, schools, workshops and motor pools. What you’d want would essentially be a self sufficient university campus in a box, available in whole or in part.