Since the beginning of covid i I have been living with 2 friends in a shared house. The house is 1600 square feet, 105 years old, only has one bathroom. And you know what? We get along great, with a yard, space to play music, and shared cooking responsibilities (its just as easy to cook for 3 as it is to cook fr yourself!)
For the same rent I pay I could live in a tiny studio apartment with a non functional kitchen and a view into someone else’s non-functional studio, and I would go totally insane. But the tiny studio is all that is a large part if the new housing stock in my city (seattle) right now, with no sign of stopping.
My take is that our collective focus on individualism has somehow tricked people into thinking that living alone is an important component of success, and people seem to want it at the expense of having a functional life and functional community.
I understand we can’t all live in (multi family) single family housing arrangements, but it saddens me to see that new construction doesn't make space for more shared living. It is cheaper, more efficient, better for mental health, arguably better for children, and wildly unpopular.
Sure, but then he can expect most of his roommates to be easy to live with, as long as he is willing and able to shop around and to change roommates when needed, even if his current roommates are not.
Why can he expect his roommates to be easy to live with? That doesn’t follow.
Also if you think he would have to shop around and change roommates often to find ones who are easy to live with, you are invalidating the point he was trying to make.
It’s not necessarily that it’s unpopular: zoning laws make it mostly illegal. Lots of cities disallow too many unrelated adults from living in the same house, and Single Room Occupancy is mostly illegal to build.
I actually agree and know a lot of people that would choose to live in more communal settings if they were available. But mostly that kind of housing doesn’t really exist: you instead have to convert single family housing to communal, and a lot of the time that means weird compromises.
living with friends can be great. I've done that and really enjoyed it. but you don't always have the luxury of great friends right away in a new place. living with randoms is more of a mixed bag. sometimes they become new friends; sometimes they just bring stress and destabilize your life. I see studios/1BRs as a way to cut out this variance while also sacrificing money and some potential upsides.
I don't really see how apartments are unfriendly to communal living though. 2BRs are very common in new developments (where I live anyway) and 3BRs aren't that hard to find either. I don't find yards to be essential to getting the benefits of communal living.
For the same rent I pay I could live in a tiny studio apartment with a non functional kitchen and a view into someone else’s non-functional studio, and I would go totally insane. But the tiny studio is all that is a large part if the new housing stock in my city (seattle) right now, with no sign of stopping.
My take is that our collective focus on individualism has somehow tricked people into thinking that living alone is an important component of success, and people seem to want it at the expense of having a functional life and functional community.
I understand we can’t all live in (multi family) single family housing arrangements, but it saddens me to see that new construction doesn't make space for more shared living. It is cheaper, more efficient, better for mental health, arguably better for children, and wildly unpopular.