Those who wrote the article seem to take offence at people even sharing the same apartment too closely. There was no mention of whether or not the people depicted may be friends or family.
Anyway, my point was that expecting and demanding personal space is indeed a feeling of entitlement. That any normal person deserves it. That observation does not come from my personal philosophies about living, but from what people explicitly tell me. Like when you assert that “Space sharing is not the norm today” but try to make it my problem, rather than people taking responsibility for how they choose to live. If one feels entitled to more personal space, then one will need to use physical or economic force to take it from others. What it does not explain is how/why anybody deserves personal space more than anybody else does. How autonomy factors into this is whether living more closely with others actually prevents you from living as you choose to in any practical way. Or if it more the concept that you (and the writers of the article) are uncomfortable with.
I think it’s funny that you describe my writings there twice as being philosophical, as if that makes them easy to dismiss somehow. Yet the points you brought up to counter mine seemed far more philosophical. Norms, comfort, worries about “an empty life”, chic aesthetics, and value for money are all far less tangible than the practical concerns I was relating.
It also seems bass-ackwards to suggest that efficient use of space is a priority because some people are willing to pay money for it. It is a priority because the geography is a superset of your cultural norms.
First world problems have a way of bleeding over into the rest of the world too. With so many brands of bottled water to choose from (for example) it becomes easier for first world erst to rationalize that water is to be controlled by commerce like every other commodity. And if we can get squeezed for breathing space like this, why should people over the border get any sympathy?
Okay; I already have an issue with bargain bin reject driving trollies, in general, but that bit of bullshit you posted is flagrantly egregious.
I’m from Ohio, b; and the last time I visited my mom six months ago, my home town looked like a freaking tornado had struck, due to all the demolished houses and failed businesses just left to rot.
That rah-rah shit you’re promoting no longer even exists in the country as we now know it.
Things are tough all over, in every state for almost everybody… And I don’t know what the solutions are to all these problems facing us, but I do know one thing:
People like you are not helping; you’re just wallowing in all the misery and conspiring to perpetuate it with your words.
I don’t disagree with what you are actually saying, but I don’t understand what the implications of ‘tiny house living’ = ‘trailer park’ might be. What is the significance of their equivalence? If they are pretty much the same, then what bothers you about this?
It doesn’t bother me particularly. Shit, I spent most of my 20s living in a converted bus being chased off land we were squatting by the cops. A trailer park would have been FAR more peaceful. It was more the tiny house proponents being more, as Jarvis Cocker put it, ‘If you called your dad you could stop it all’ folk, and having to live in tiny, shitty places isn’t that (unless you want to do it). My house is still pretty fuckin’ tiny, and a fair sized bit is used for, ahem, ‘farming’ to get by, but it doesn’t have wheels any more. Also, I’m drunk.
You have some good points, and though I whine about our consumerist society, I’m a bit of a hoarder especially when it comes to tools and hobby stuff. However I hope the cost of housing doesn’t get so high that most people can only afford a cardboard box in a slum, maybe with a piece of masonite over their heads if they’re lucky. I’m horrified at the images of such things from around the world.
People are using real estate as an investment. Is that one reason the cost is skyrocketing? Or is it just demand/supply?
To add to what @GilbertWham said, there is also the difference that planning to live that way can make. With plans you can make a tiny house livable for you and your family. Without plans people end up with wherever they can get, usually rented, and unable to make the space work well for them.
Part of me wants to live in an electric, self-driving VW Transporter van (or something similar), built to my needs. I can’t see it happening though
By the way, Zillow shows over 30 4-BR houses in Ohio for rent at or under $750/month; some of them wouldn’t be half bad if you could pick them up and move them somewhere else.
Tiny apartments are not a new idea. I love my 1926 efficiency unit- It has a dine in kitchen and THREE closets (I’m fairly sure one of them was once a Murphy Bed). Also has the original bathtub and bathroom tile, about which I’m torn between cool/gross. As a single person, $700/mo for 270 square feet to call my own, 20 minutes by train from Boston, seems foolish to turn down.
My issue with the Ikea photo series is it’s a bit dehumanizing- $40 tables are great when you’re moving into your first place out of college, but with many people staying in those little places longer, why not feature a more luxuriously finished way of life in small spaces? Because that IS a tradeoff that people can make- I COULD move into a place that’s a little bigger for another $200/mo, or I could buy a $4800 custom upholstered sofa and stay here for two more years.
