Of course it’s not meant for everybody. I was also enchanted by her her sense of purpose, which might be to see if her idea was going to work. Only to find out that it did work and people found it useful and thankful. I know you think that an altercation will eventually happen at one of these things but I think her inverted Panopticon might be a very good deterrent for deviant behavior. And I also think she probably would have wanted to make it cheaper. But then maybe realized that it might bring in a less desirable type of client. Anyway good job Kid.
I’m in Lincoln Park, San Diego, just 5 miles from there. Howdy neighbor!
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Lemon Groovy is a thing! We still use it.
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Looks like the perfect place to live! … if you are a bed bug.
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Depends who “we” is. I would have a problem with the lack of privacy, but then again I have the luxury of being able to afford better. Others are not so fortunate.
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Yes, but: this isn’t low end and being aimed at those who might really benefit from such an arrangement. This is being aimed at young hipster tech folks.
If we were taking about an option that might really help the under-served, I’d be having a very different reaction.
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OK, so what? The focus seems to be on community rather than just affordability, and it can be a felt need even if it isn’t the most pressing need that the city has. I spent two years in a cabin with 14 other guys, and my only privacy was my bunk (which was too small to sit up in, but it did have a curtain). I’m an introvert, but even after having the chance to stay in a large cabin with only one cabin mate, I chose to move back. With the right people, it can be a lot of fun. You don’t have to travel in order to spend time with friends after work. There’s generally someone who wants to do something or go out. With rules that people respect, there aren’t too many downsides. I wouldn’t want to spend five years in that environment, but it’s probably a good way to get to know people if you’re moving to the area.
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Looking good, Donnie Ray!
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Not much opportunity for doing those things that most people do in private.
The Lemon is looking a bit rough, though. Needs a paint job and re-lettering.
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Nope. I just read J.G. Ballard’s "Billennium’ - I don’t want to get reduced to 3.5m. I like the idea of a network of places you can use for the desk, power, and short term sleeping, but I don’t like the setup. Are the pods really open on one side? Might as well have a bunk on a Navy ship. I could sleep in a smaller space, that was as wide as a twin bed, as long as it was enclosed and soundproof - isn’t that how it worked in WIlliam Gibson’s work, and there are some real world equivalents in Asia. But I don’t want the lack of privacy, or automatically involved in others’ privacy.
Until we’re all living in a socialist utopia, flophouses will be a vital segment of the housing stock.
Cities across the US somehow decided that if they made flophouses and boarding houses illegal that everyone would magically find themselves a home with a yard or a private one-bedroom apartment. Instead, they ensured that our least fortunate sleep on the street instead of in beds.
So, yes. Unless you’re going to personally pay $1000/month rent on behalf of the wino who sleeps on your stoop, we need more of this. WAY more of this.
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Let me clarify:
I believe that flophouses should have no place in our society because I believe that every human is entitled to their own space to live. Call it utopian or socialist or whatever, but reasonable housing falls under “bare minimum” for me, and I think we need to do a better job of helping those people around us.
Now, if some tech hipsters all want to live in an overgrown dorm, whatever. They’re adults that can do what they like. My concern is the normalization of this arrangement- that others will look to make this a new normal, and I don’t think that should be the case.
So, I think, we actually agree that society needs to do a much better job about helping those people. I just don’t think that flophouses are the way to go to do that.
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The idea isn’t that bad, I guess, if you think of it as a hostel, it’s the titanic piles of bullshit corporate-hipster speak, and the general image they’re presenting around the project, that is offputting. The webpage contains gems like…
"The future is “access not ownership”…and so on. There are platitudes thrown around about the “freelance economy”. The idiocy of their myopic central mantra makes me want to tell them to go fuck themselves out of principle.
Note that this, unlike a standard hostel or hotel, is “membership based”, which I’m guessing is a euaphamism for “we’re going to make sure that homeless people, children, old people, and other undesriables aren’t using our service so your cool self-image remains intact”.
Also, you’re going to find a lot more images of people getting regrettable tatoos than you are people that aren’t young and white, on their website.
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I assume because most people don’t want to share personal space with lots of strangers unless they have no choice (such as the military or in remote work places like oil fields).
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This was a podcast rebroadcast of another one of these legacy New York flophouses and spoke a lot with the gents living in it and the manager.
This violates the “never live more than 150 miles from a coast” rule. I believe.
That’s because people like to pretend that the 21st century will look like the post-50’s 20th and not like the late 19th century.
This is the new normal. The tech bros gets this because they can afford to pay for it (and only it for many of them). Those that can’t pay, well, I guess they get to find out what a Libertarian paradise in a permanent economic downturn looks like.
I think people fundamentally forget that most people are significantly poorer than they were 45 to 55 years ago in America. Our peak financially was sometime around the late 1960s or early 1970s.
We should bring back flophouses because, like the 19th century, the poor folks are going to need them.
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So, let’s make a deal: I’ll work for economic justice, and in the meantime can we please stop actively demolishing and regulating against inexpensive housing because ‘no one should have to live like that’? If we should be so lucky as to eliminate poverty then I suspect the flophouses will go away without us having to decry them.
edit: Apparently I am holding you personally responsible for the urban policies of the 2nd half of the 20th century. I’m really touchy about the way my city outlawed poverty in the 70’s but… apologies, my aim is not so good.
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People live in dorms, barracks, on ships in prison and camp. We’re social animals and living space is a scarce and expensive resource. Anything we can do to be more flexible can be helpful. This may not work for you, and is not tenable to force folks into, but it’s not that drastic.
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