Random thoughts on how people live in the 21st Century.

[WarGamer]

So in my home town... we have a shopping mall. Built around 20 years ago, it's one of those BIG beasts, an "outdoor mall", meaning there's a covered but outdoor walkway that strolls through the stores on the left or right.

Well...problem was, the next town over had a 50 year old mall in a more affluent area and they spent 100's of millions of $$ to upgrade it so OUR mall emptied out and is a ghost town.

Now they've agreed to modify the mall to build apartment buildings, creating a few hundred apartments positioned over and next to these walkways adjacent to mall stores. SO literally... you leave your apartment building, walk past a Gamestop, Victoria's Secret and walk into an AMC theater for a movie... then walk across the street to California Pizza Kitchen for a snack.

Look at a place like Austin, TX where they are building 1000's of new homes in the suburbs, straining infrastructure and the environment.

We need to start living small. Work where you live, shop where you live, be entertained where you live...

And how about tiny houses?

WHY can't cities and states take some of their own land (they have lots) and build MASSIVE tiny home communities lots with lakes, hiking trails and such things...

Make them nicer than mobile home parks... without the stigma.

And tiny homes are really the future...

Maybe 2500sf lots... and sell for like 25k.

And of course... I'm a big fan of large block style apartment buildings but they have the whole "the projects" stigma.

[spooky3]

1. I think tiny houses are fascinating, but they seem to be

More expensive RVs. Most people want more space over the long term.

[WarGamer]

2. I've thought a lot about that...

I would guess that if you have sufficient STORAGE SPACE... your living space can indeed be small. Maybe a metal building near your tiny house?

[lagomorph777]

5. There's a very wide range of tiny home designs.

They vary widely in price as well.

They could prevent a whole lot of homelessness. I think most homeless people aren't worrying too much about having enough counter space for the espresso machine.

[bucolic_frolic]

3. WHY can't cities and states take some of their own land ... and build MASSIVE tiny home communities

If there's a lesson from public housing, from the 1960s, it is that low income residents with little background in maintenance, personal finance, and sometimes skills of living, have no skin in the game of the houses built for them. If they don't own it and haven't paid for it, and lack adequate funding to prosper in the community, the buildings will suffer from neglect. Private property, with all its faults, is motivating.

[WarGamer]

4. Then have the tiny home parks heavily regulated.

Evict people.

Fine people.

But I think even privately it could be profitable.

Sell a 25k lot for 25k and that's the same as selling a 7500sf lot for 75k... not quite because of infrastructure and utilities but you get the idea.

Maybe make them 55+

[bucolic_frolic]

7. Sociology tells us

that people at the bottom of society, and I'm not dissing them or disparaging them, just saying these are folks to more of an extent than the rest of the income scale, don't have as stable a background. Some don't obey laws. It's just not their thing.

[Lucid Dreamer]

6. The must be some investment in property to promote security.

If they don't own it and haven't paid for it, and lack adequate funding to prosper in the community, the buildings will suffer from neglect.

Not just neglect. Too many cases of wanton destruction and sabotage.
See Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis MO. and Cabrini Green, Chicago.

[llmart]

8. I have a better idea.

I just don't think the tiny house concept is ever going to be accepted by a majority of Americans. However, I do believe that we could do something akin to what happened after WWII, aka Levittown type housing. I'm a leading edge boomer and I have always thought those houses, which were about 900 sq. feet, were perfectly fine for many families with two or three kids. I know I envied some of my schoolmates who lived in those houses since we were poor and were renters. For the most part, the families were grateful for having a new house after what they'd been through in the depression and the war.

We have no foresight in this country. I said many times that we were not prepared for what we were going to need when the boomers got old. We kept building bigger and bigger houses that were two stories and so many of my cohorts can't navigate stairs any more. When I turned 62 I bought a one-story site condo where your basic outdoor work is done for you. There are also many two-story condos in my complex but those are not the ones anyone downsizing wants. I actually get about three to ten inquiries a year on selling my house and it's always someone either my age or even younger looking to live in the subdivision but wanting a one-story. They just don't come on the market very often. What was built in the way of condos though were what is called "raised ranches" where you have to walk up an outside flight of stairs to get to your doorway and then a flight of about 15 more stairs to get up to the actual living area. Young people can't afford to buy those and old people can't navigate living in them.

Don't get me started on all the rampant building of upscale "malls". One by us is about ten years old and the pandemic left it almost empty. The anchor stores left, such as Nordstrom, et.al. Just really poor planning or no planning at all.