
Live small, be happy? The next new big thing - yitchelle
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150420-why-small-is-the-new-big-thing
======
sqldba
This article made me extremely unhappy. It's like a letter from the rich baby
boomer generation living in big houses, and with multiple "investment"
properties jacking up the prices for the rest of us, then telling us well
you'll actually be happier living somewhere smaller!

The article hit the nail on the head pointing out, repeatedly, that this
wasn't a choice so much as something that had been forced upon these people
who were simply making do with what they could. And yet it comes up with the
wrong conclusion and title.

~~~
tormeh
Ummm... If you don't earn that much, yet still want to live in the center of a
big city, isn't small housing a good solution? Unoccupied investment homes are
making the space problem worse, but fitting lots of people into a small area
requires small housing. In everyday physics, space is conserved.

~~~
jjaredsimpson
Zoning laws and neighborhood associations actively fight vertical density
which would bring down cost for new owners/renters all in the name of
preserving "character."

Space isn't conserved, it's increase is being opposed.

~~~
tormeh
I was working within the constraints imposed by those obstructionists.

------
romanovcode
This is horrible.

Reminds me of post by anon about how there will be no "collapse".[0]

[0] [http://i.imgur.com/DtpRs3r.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/DtpRs3r.jpg)

~~~
johnchristopher
Text version

 _There will be no "collapse" the way some of these people think of it. It's
not going to be like the movie "Dawn of the Dead" or whatever where one day
suddenly shit hits the fan and prices skyrocket and everyone begins to riot
and the SS comes marching down the street to kill everyone. There will be no
"happening". It's far more insidious than that. Read the poem "The Hollow Men"
by TS ELiot and you'll understand.

You'll just notice that every day simple things will become a little more
expensive. Everyone's homes and apartments will start to get smaller. your
work hours will get longer, but your pay will decrease. You'll see family and
friends less, and find that in time you care less about them. Every day you'll
find yourself lowering your standards for everything: work, food,
relationships, etc. Job security will no longer exist as a concept. You'll
notice houses and apartments shrinking. People will start hanging on clothing
longer and longer. Less people will get married, even less will have children.
People will engross themselves in technological distractions and fantasy while
never truly experiencing the real world.

Whatever dream people used to have about what their lives were going to be
will become for them a distant memory. The only thing left for them will be
the reality of their debt and their poverty. And every minute of every day
they will be told: "You are stupid, ugly and weak, but together we are free,
prosperous and safe."

That is the collapse. The reduction of the American man into a feudal serf,
incapable of feeling love or hate, incapable of seeing the pitiful nature of
his situation for what it is or recognizing his own self worth._

------
LaurensBER
> They offer living spaces of less than 46.5sq metres (500sq foot)

Ha, try living in The Netherlands!

I live in 24sq meters in a reasonable large city, my brother lives in 8sq
meters in Amsterdam. We pay about the same and really, given how much the city
offers neither of us complains. We both have a 5-10 minute commute by bike.

I have all the stuff I need and very little of the stuff that I don't need. We
both live pretty close to a park, I can rent a place in a coworking space for
100 euros/month (including unlimited good coffee!) and given that I do things
outside of the house most evenings anyway this works out perfect.

I couldn't imagine sharing my place with someone else but then again a friend
of mine is living together with his GF on 28sq meters and they rarely complain
about lack of space.

~~~
yitchelle
> my brother lives in 8sq meters in Amsterdam

Let put some perspective around this. That could be 2 metres wide and 4 metres
long. Did he rent a bedroom and share a living area with others?

~~~
LaurensBER
It's a bed and a desk, they even had to cut up the bed otherwise it wouldn't
fit into the room. He custom made his desk for the small space. They have two
other bedrooms in that house, a shared kitchen and a small garden. No living
area, although they often use the largest bedroom room as one.

He has been living in Amsterdam for almost two years now, if you're young,
don't want to spend a lot of money and you want to live in "de ring" (the
inner city) it's your only option.

It's perfectly livable though!

~~~
wffurr
It sounds like a small space, but since it is a shared unit, saying he only
has 8 sq M is misleading.

Instead, it is 3 people living in ~40 sq M.

I did the same thing when I first moveD to Boston. I got a bedroom in a four
bedroom one bath townhouse, and the rent was quite reasonable split four ways.
The shared kitchen and bath were not a problem, and I had plenty of space for
one person with just a bed, desk, and dresser.

Now I pay more than that entire place for a 60 sq M place for my wife and me,
that is only a 15 minute bike ride from work.

------
brc
Ok for a short time. Essentially vertical trailer parks. I would rent one but
I would never buy one.

When I worked CBD jobs I always made the trade off of living space to commute
time. Years later you forget your small place but the hours of commuting in
packed trains leaves a tear in your soul.

It takes a real commitment to anti-hoarding and ruthless effiency to live in a
small place.

~~~
laichzeit0
It's when I read articles like these that I have to take a step back, realise
that my situation is so much better than most people, stop complaining about
the little things and just get on with it. Commute time is something that for
me is non-negotiable. Those are hours of your life you'll never get back, and
the whole process feels so draining. I don't know how people who commute 2 or
more hours a day have the energy to go to gym, make food, read books, etc. I'd
just want to get home, eat and sleep.

(144sq meter house, living on my own, 7 minutes to work, yeah I even drive
cause why not, 10 minutes from work to gym, another 10 home, total travel =
~30 minutes per day).

~~~
chocopoche
Why notre driving? Air quality. Ride a bike, dont go to gym, earn more time.

~~~
FLUX-YOU
May not be safe. The health benefits of biking kind of plummet if you become
an asphalt decoration.

~~~
angusangus
[https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-
on-...](https://nwurban.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/cyclings-impact-on-life-
expectancy/)

TLDR: Health benefits of cycling are believed to significantly outweigh health
risks on average.

------
rbanffy
I am not sure I like the concept of no private spaces... If I can't invite my
closest friends home, how can I conspire efficiently?

------
jp555
Cheap credit continues to drive property prices into the insane, especially in
Vancouver. This is a failure of monetary policy more than anything. You can
now get a variable rate mortgage for less than 2%, which is the rate of
inflation, so it's essentialy free money. This of course massivly inflates the
bids people put on houses. It also does not help that the media repeats the
R/E frankenumbers the R/E associations claim are fact, but are wildy out of
step with reality.

~~~
bottled_poe
Foreign investment is also a significant factor. That rope Lenin was talking
about is tightening...

~~~
jp555
I think that's more media spin. The actual sales stats show a TINY fraction of
sales are to foreign owners, but more often for very expensive properties
($2M+), which can make things appear differently. Over 99% of homes, even in
Vancouver, are sold to Canadian buyers.

But the spectre of "foreign buyers" does help the real estate industry by
adding pressure to increase bids. I'm not suggesting there's a conspiracy,
just that it's a narrative many actors independently have a monetary incentive
to push.

------
JoeAltmaier
I live in a rural community 15 minutes from a larger city. Numerous
entertainment options; scores of coffee shops and restaurants; international
foods in great variety. My house is > 2000 sq ft. Also a garage and two
outbuildings - an old cattle shed and a pole barn.

Big cities are a trap. Thousands of shops and theaters, sure, but how many
does a person need? Try a smaller 'big city', of 100,000 or so people, and
things get much, much better.

~~~
mathgeek
I grew up in an area like that. Thirty years later, I left that same area
because all of the folks fleeing the big city had moved there. It's just a
matter of time.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
I cleverly settled in the country in the direction of town that has the
airport, fairgrounds and cement plant. Nobody wants to live by all that; no
new developments have gone in there for 20 years now. Town has doubled in that
time, but in other directions. So a good call by my younger self!

------
tim333
I guess if the worlds young population wants to live and hang out in the
centre of trendy cities (London, NY, SF etc) then the only options are packing
them tighter or excluding more.

I think the tight packing thing can work if with some downsides.

~~~
whichfawkes
Obviously they just need taller buildings with deeper basements. Same square
footage, different elevation.

------
amelius
This may work if you are used to small places (e.g., for students). But going
from a big place to a small place is probably not such a good idea. I could be
wrong though.

~~~
mattlutze
The pain only comes twice, really.

1\. The couple of weeks before you make your move, where you sort what you
need and what you don't need, so you can get rid of the latter.

2\. A few weeks/months after you move, when you realize you only use 25% of
what you kept and purge once again.

After that, it's really quite pleasant. The biggest change is spending more
time out of the house in public spaces, since you no longer have the space to
maintain separated individual little worlds in your home.

~~~
wffurr
"Purging" stuff is a pain in the ass. How do you responsibly and efficiently
get rid of your crap?

My living room is a quarter full of shipping supplies for selling my things on
eBay, and I am getting sick of it. It's not even that I want the money, but
that I don't want to just toss things in the landfill.

~~~
tormeh
Depending on where you live, you can put it in the street and people who want
it can pick it up. Come back the next day or two and throw the remainder in
the garbage.

~~~
dagw
_Come back the next day or two and throw the remainder in the garbage._

How do you fit furniture into a garbage chute?

~~~
tormeh
Why would you want to do that? Aren't there garbage containers where you live?
How do you usually get rid of big things?

~~~
dagw
No garbage containers just generally available. And putting trash out on the
street will at best get me very angry looks from my neighbors and worst a fine
from the police.

The correct way to get rid of any garbage that I can't fit into the garbage
chute is to take it to the dump (which is a bit tricky without a car).

------
whoisthemachine
Developments like this seem to generally support the idea that we are
returning to the gilded age. Reminds me of tenements[0], with the exception
that the apartments seem to have a higher construction standard.

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenement](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenement).

