Hundreds of tiny studio flats, many smaller than a budget hotel room, are to be squeezed into an eleven-storey block in north London as its developer takes advantage of the government’s relaxation of planning regulations.
Plans for Barnet House, used by the London borough of Barnet’s housing department, reveal that 96% of the 254 proposed flats will be smaller than the national minimum space standards of 37 sq metres (44 sq yards) for a single person.
The tiniest homes will be 16 sq metres – 40% smaller than the average Travelodge room. [...] In the surrounding area, studio flats of a similar scale to most planned at Barnet House sell for around £180,000 and rent for around £800 per month.
[...] Office buildings in Croydon have also been converted into studios with floor areas of as little as 15 sq metres under the Tory deregulation. Housing experts have attacked the relaxation of planning regulations as a “race to the bottom”, but ministers insist the measure is helping to deliver vital new housing, and point out that more than 10,000 new homes were created from office buildings last year.
Under the “permitted development” system, developers who convert offices into homes do not have to meet minimum floor area standards, considered by researchers to be important for health, educational attainment and family relationships. Neither do they have to include any affordable housing.
Source: The Guardian
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:16AM (14 children)
"Packt Like Sardines in a Crushd Tin Box" is the perfect descriptor for what capitalism does to cities and the people who inhabit them.
It's your typical boom and bust scenario-- or I guess it would be a "shrink and bust" scenario in this case. Eventually, square meterage will become so expensive nobody can afford it, and then it will, of course, collapse.
When will we learn that regulation will solve these idiotic problems?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:33AM (11 children)
Regulation only encourages people to find a way around regulations. You're living in a dream world if you think they actually fix a problem. How do you think slums are born? Prohibit the landlord from jacking up the price and he'll stop doing maintenance on his property in order to save money, for instance.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:46AM (4 children)
Yes, if you make a regulation against robbing the liquor store, people will just find another way to steal. We need to get rid of all those silly worthless laws.
ANARCHY BURGER!
hold the government!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:33AM
Just sayin'.
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:28AM (2 children)
There are regulations against robbing liquor stores, and yet people still do it. QED.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @10:48AM
yes, some person, somewhere will break a law, hence we don't need any law
brought to you by the same logic that says we should all worship the invisible hand, ideally with an invisible brain
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:58PM
But that doesn't apply in context when landlords decide to lawlessly maintain their properties despite there being a lack of regulation compelling them to do so.
Wait, they don't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:53AM (5 children)
I'm turning increasingly against governmental regulations, but at the same time I don't think your example is a good one. If we have an individual who is the sort that would stop maintaining his property if he felt that might bring him more property then it's not going to be regulations that'd push him towards that behavior, but his own greed. Lacking regulation he'd jack up the price and cease maintenance. It's somewhat like people claiming the minimum wage increases are leading to automation. No, technology is leading to automation. Calls for minimum wage increases are just a handy scape goat for companies wanting to maximize their revenue by adopting automated technologies while minimizing public backlash.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:21AM (4 children)
I see where you get your theory, but it's not borne out by reality.
In real life, NYC slumlords became a real problem in the post-zoning era because they couldn't raise rents, didn't want to spend money, couldn't (easily) evict tenants - in effect, they became prisoners of their own property. Gentrification actually broke this spiral because as gentrifiers moved in, and took over available apartments, and valuations rose, and people moved around, rents tended to get reset.
In other cities where there isn't such a big problem with rent control, and such tight zoning restrictions, slumlords are more usually the lazy landlord than the actually perverse one, and renters have more options for mobility.
In a lightly regulated but active property market, slumlords tend to find themselves without tenants. In NYC, they tend to be a real problem.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:03PM (3 children)
That was due to excessive and poorly thought regulation coupled with a demand far exceeding supply. NO regulation is an excess in the other direction.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:11PM (2 children)
Sure, but nobody is proposing (or permitting) no-holds-barred firetrap creation in London. Or NYC, for that matter. All they did in London was to reduce the relevant set of regulations as, in effect, an emergency provision to try to raise the housing stock; a problem that has plagued London for ages. Most of the people who would move into these areas are just too young to know an era when regulation was not the chokehold over housing stock alterations in London.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:44PM (1 child)
I'm not so sure. They're effectively doubling the number of people flooding the hallways and stairs if/when there is a fire. Has anyone modeled the evacuation to see if it can even work?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:20PM
No, check the background. These are office buildings. They're specified for full cubes of people. And the authorities didn't just open the floodgates, in regulatory terms - they just eased them.
Is it perfect? No, but they have some other, really big fish to fry.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:38AM
If you don't want to live in tiny apartment, then you can allocate your own capital to some other lifestyle. Get it, yet?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:50AM
Well:
"There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom"
Richard Feynman, Dec 1959
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Dunbal on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:30AM (9 children)
People keep forking over cash in order to live in these tiny boxes. Well, don't complain.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jcross on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:38AM (8 children)
And it makes sense because these apartments will be cheaper than budget hotel rooms. Or at least, if you manage to find a hotel room in London for 26 pounds per night (800 / 30 = 26), you're probably going to wake up in a dumpster with a scar where your left kidney used to be. Man, what a stupid comparison anyway; there's no natural reason why apartments should be bigger than hotel rooms in the first place.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:06AM (5 children)
Other than people living their entire lives in their apartments... You know that whole thing.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:07AM (4 children)
Other than people living their entire lives in their apartments... You know that whole thing.
If you're single, starting out or not, working full time, well, how much space do you need? As long as you have a kitchen in the apartment where you can prepare your meals and a bathroom with a shower one can live comfortably in a fairly small space.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:02PM (3 children)
Ok I have to ask:
Who in their right mind would pay so much, for such a small space, regardless of how much they actually need?
People have to have a high enough income and a need for living space that greatly exceeds their capability to find more spacious housing elsewhere.
I do not understand why people are so willing to pay so much... for a tiny place. In Hawaii or other very desirable locations, it makes sense. The place is nice to live in, and one doesn't need to stay indoors for long, and many of those places allow for some element of self-sustenance via fishing.
Anyone old enough to afford a place like these apartments knows better than to live in one unless there are no alternatives.
Anyone young enough to not need anything larger could not reasonably afford it, unless there are a lot of great paying jobs for young childless people out there.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:16PM (2 children)
You must not be familiar with London.
London has terrible traffic, a hideous street plan, big natural barriers (such as the Thames), a very high cost of living, a terribly oversubscribed housing stock, and very high wages (compared to most of the rest of the world).
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:08PM (1 child)
and very high wages (compared to most of the rest of the world).
Really? Maybe that excludes engineers, because everything I read says that software engineers there get about half of the pay of non-Silicon Valley software engineers here in the US. Why anyone would go into that field in the UK is beyond me.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:11PM
thats why i asked.
i was offered a job there; to move from the US. It would have been cool except for that I would have lost money even in the short run. the standard of living seemed to circle around being close to areas one can drink at and safely return to bed from before having to return to work in a few hours.
i dont know how people graduate out of a life like that, but it seems there is little discussion about housing for middle aged people, just smaller rectangles for the growing amounts of young people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:36PM
Except that the hotel supposedly comes with a maid?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:42PM
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:22AM (4 children)
https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g194830-d582075-i128927617-Le_Fonti-Montecatini_Terme_Province_of_Pistoia_Tuscany.html [tripadvisor.com]
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:12AM (3 children)
Combo shower/toilet. Pretty interesting design concept.
I kinda like it. Just that many things fewer to clean, the area around the toilet gets a washdown when the shower gets used, and a closed lid lets the toilet be used as a resting stool while showering.
I fail to see why someone was so disappointed. Looked more efficient to me.
Had I been involved in the design, I think I would have rotated the bowl 90 degrees so it faced the shower. Should I desire a freshly rinsed bowl, I could always open the lid and run the shower on it for a few seconds....as well as doing this while waiting for the hot water to arrive.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:37PM (2 children)
We had that combination in our suite of rooms in the dorm in China, the toilet under the shower. Except it was an Asian-style toilet (a trough in the floor you squat over). More than once when you were rinsing your face you would accidentally step into the toilet drain, which is one place in the world where you don't want your foot to be. Then there was our roommate the 65-year old businessman from Boston who was there on the Mandarin-immersion program because he did a lot of business with China, who brought a CostCo size pack of soap with him and within the first two weeks lost the entire thing by dropping the bars in the shower and watching as they ping-ponged around the chamber until they found the lowest point of potential energy--the toilet drain. His cursing coming through the walls put us in stitches. He had the additional problem that he was tall and large and couldn't really use the toilet in the orientation you're meant to and had to squat side-saddle, which position unfortunately placed the drawers he had lowered around his ankles more or less within the trajectory of his turds, and more than once wound up landing a fresh one in his underpants.
So the toilet in the shower design made for good comedy, but wasn't very useful otherwise.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by art guerrilla on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:12AM
! ? ! ? ! ?
what next, a combo bidet/drinking fountain ? ? ?
geez louise, i am surprised every person using such an arrangement didn't come down with cholera or something...
hell, poop aerosolizes (sp?) and gets over everything in a 'modern' bathroom; here you have a shower splashing poo residue (residoo?) up on your feet/legs, etc...
day-am, just sounds like the worst of both worlds, i'd rather wait for the next rain shower, thank you... and that tree over there looks like a fine tree to pee/poop behind, hope the leaves aren't an irritant...
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Sunday April 02 2017, @06:07AM
A combination a Western-style toilet was fine, in my experience.
(Score: 3, Funny) by SomeGuy on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:23AM (2 children)
16 sq meters? That is not a home, that is a Borg alcove.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:56AM
Sounds like Tokyo.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:02PM
A 16 square meter space is equivalent to 4 by 4 meters. That is simply awful. Nobody should be required to live like that.
Heck. The average prison cell in a civilized country is probably larger than that, and keep in mind that prisoners generally do not use their cells for showering or preparing food.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:12AM (4 children)
If google is my friend. Which is 1/3 larger than the apartment I currently live in, and is about the size of the condo I purchased in the mid-80s.
Doesn't measure up to the 2400 sq/ft house I bought in the 90's and lost in the divorce, but I only used maybe 1/3 of that house.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:30AM
No, sorry.
A meter is (as near as dammit) 40 inches, or 3.3 feet. 3.3 squared is around 11 (slightly more). So more like 175 square feet, which is to say slightly less than 20 square yards.
Now this is small, I fully grant you, but given that loud voices on the green left have been demanding dense urban housing to reduce commuting, heating costs, carbon footprints and all the rest of it, I can only say that they're getting their wish.
Except that now the left's complaining about it, because apparently the ultra-rich need to live in tiny flats, while the honest hewers of wood and drawers of water need leafy acres on which to raise their brood, or whatever it is they're supposed to do.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by jcross on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:32AM (1 child)
Google is not your friend, 16 square meters is more like 172 square feet. It's pretty damn small, but I agree with some others here that if people want to pay for it, they absolutely should be allowed to. What I don't understand is how come liberals seem to spin this kind of stuff as people being cheated by greedy landlords and advocate for regulation, rather than seeing it as an efficient use of space and building materials, which is good for the planet. And the environmentalists always seem to be painting cities as evil centers of consumption, when they require massively fewer resources per person than modern suburban or rural development, with miles of roads, pipes, and power lines to serve a sparse population.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:17PM
wow that is the size of my home office that i use for work
truly, it takes money to make business expenses from which one makes money
but to your other point, people often want to pay for something like this if they are led to believe it is good via marketing, or its the only thing available.
i am not sure how you are equating urban centers with conservative thought, since the evil liberals seem to congregate in such urban centers, and then following your logic, complain about the conditions.
also no one mentioned liberals in this thread except for you and my reply to it. not sure why you must politicize it
(Score: 1) by Pete (big-pete) on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:46AM
Google actually says 172 sq/ft. [google.be]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:21AM
London has now for decades been the poster child for NIMBY - and a good dose of BANANAS as well. The property market has been insane, because of a well-studied, well-documented simple lack of supply.
A large part of the lack of supply came down to planning restrictions. As far back in the 1980s it was a joke. Those who remember Yes, Minister, may recall in the very first episode how Jim was supposed to have made political hay in the opposition by declaring that building a bungalow in the 20th century took longer than building a cathedral in the 13th.
So what did they do? For the last three decades and counting every government promised with serious frowns that they were absolutely, definitely going to Do Something About It... followed by total paralysis.
Now the tories (and some allies further down the chain of government) scratched together some gumption and actually Did Something About It, and rather than recognise the reality that these flats are sorely needed, and will surely help add some supply back to the market, perhaps even reducing other prices for the larger end of the market (especially on the periphery of Greater London), the great and good are wringing their hands about flats with floor space of 16 square meters - flats which are evidently aimed at the single worker who's probably trying to save up for something bigger and better, and will be delighted to spend two fewer hours per working day commuting to some miserable dungeon - and have the time back in their lives.
At least, let's give this a fair trial before we start assembling lampposts, rope and landlords, shall we?
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:23AM (1 child)
I like Chinese
They only come up to your knees
Yet they’re always friendly
And they’re ready to please."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:05AM
A landlord's dream.
(Score: 3, Informative) by MadTinfoilHatter on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:33AM (11 children)
The real surprise isn't that they're building flats this small, it's the the previous standard has been
the national minimum space standards of 37 sq metres (44 sq yards) for a single person.
No wonder that London is the most expensive city in Europe if they waste space like that. Over here (Finland) a typical single person's apartment is somewhere in the 25 - 35 sq m range. At 36 - 56 sq m you're typically already talking 2 rooms + kitchen - something a young couple or a single person with more space requirements might want. 16 sq m sounds more like a cheap student's flat that is only intended to provide the bare minimum, but given the prices in London it's surprising they haven't been building these things until now. There's obviously a market for it.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @05:46AM (2 children)
Another approach is to setup living where there's plenty of cheap land. Usually outside town. There's a lot of other opportunities to make a living these days.
(Score: 2) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:04AM (1 child)
Not really allowed to build in the countryside without meeting strict requirements.
Victory for 'hobbit house' threatened with demolition after owners are finally told it can stay [walesonline.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:33AM
Put it on wheels?
In the old days when the environment became bad, people moved to where the circumstances were better.
In cities. A lot of problems have their source in people not the physical environment.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:05AM (6 children)
16 m^2... let me break that down for you:
bed: 2 m^2
shower: 1 m^2
toilet: 0.5 m^2 (you need space in front)
table: 1 m^2
sink: 0.5 m^2 (you need space in front)
fridge: 0.5m^2
doors: minimum of 2 (unless you don't mind an exposed toilet), will take up 1m^2 each
window: I guess you could make it so that it only needs 0.5m^2 to be opened.
that's already 8m^2.
so you are left with 8m^2 for: table, clothes, books (you said student).
I'd say either there's a bigger common room where these people can go relax, or you'll be driving all of them insane.
Fuck it, my bedroom at home was 3m x 4m, and I think it was small!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Wednesday March 29 2017, @08:35AM (2 children)
Landlords make a profit, the public pays with health.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:30AM (1 child)
Back in my parent's day, we had negated the tendency of people to tie up and rent-seek property by allowing the resident who owned the property he was living in to "homestead" it. In some cases, the "homestead" allowed was the actual value of the house. Meaning, the worker living there owed no property tax - rather the government let him spend the money he earned in his community instead of taking it from him and spending as the government saw fit.
However, today, tax changes ( lobbyist - inspired ) and inflation have minimized the impact of ownership by the resident.
Although house valuations have grown by leaps and bounds, the homestead allowance has remained constant.
IMHO, the homestead allowance should be the average price of a home in the county. Just like it was in my dad's day.
Its this damned tax law which is encouraging investors to snap up properties as they go on the market, as investors can now get a lot of tax breaks for ownership of properties rather than creation of jobs.
Investors are allowed depreciation. Homeowners are not.
Investors are allowed deductions for maintenance. Homeowners are not.
With a shake of the hand, and a signature of a pen, our representatives have basically told those of us who have money to hoard real estate instead of generating jobs ( aka. "Dale Carnegie" or "Henry Ford" ).
As we take things people have to have, like a place to live, which are in finite supply, and encourage wealth-holders to hoard it, well, no wonder the price goes through the roof.
This is not a failure of the wealth-holder's greed. He is going to do what he has to do to husband his assets.
This is a failure, pure and simple, of the representation-by-proxy system we have being bribed.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:50PM
Let your own company own your own house?
You --> company --> company --> house ownership.
Deduct all maintenance?
(Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Wednesday March 29 2017, @01:05PM
He was commenting on the supposed minimum of 37sqm and stated in Finland 25-35sqm are not uncommon. With your calculation that means there are at the lower end 17sqm for table, clothes and books. Which is obviously not large, but in my experience well manageable.
As a student, I wouldn't mind living on 16sqm, although I would have objected that size for a long term residence. A *minimum* of 37sqm for one person is imo ridiculous.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Thursday March 30 2017, @05:31AM (1 child)
shower: 1 m^2
toilet: 0.5 m^2 (you need space in front)
[...]
sink: 0.5 m^2 (you need space in front)
Sink-toilet combinations exist, and can be installed in a small room that serves as a shower:
http://www.homedit.com/eco-friendly-toilet-sink-combo/ [homedit.com]
I've used a toilet-shower combination made from moulded plastic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:19PM
I've only ever seen those in jail (in now civilian-fashionable stainless steel).
(Don't ask, muthafucka!)
(Score: 1) by Soylentbob on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:41AM
Same I though. My first "real" flat was 30sqm, after living in a 10sqm student home for 4 years. (Student home had an additional bathroom, shared with one other student, and a kitchen shared with 3 other students.) The 30sqm flat was more than big enough for me.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @04:37AM (1 child)
...and this is what you get. Sardine law!
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @05:36AM
They don't need space for 72 virgins right now. It's postponed until a suitable bad deed has been handed out by their mobile phone. But then in heaven there's supposedly a lot of space. Neat isn't it? :-)
I suppose the heavenly facilities for STD checking are hard to check out on beforehand. A slight risk thoe.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday March 29 2017, @12:47PM
Something this small, or even like the pod hotels from Japan, make a good solution for the homeless. A couple of the worst aspects of that condition are the lack of privacy and not having a secure place to keep your stuff, and to sleep. You can fit a lot of such spaces in a larger building with common areas for eating, bathing, and the like. You can make rent with a nominal fee or by taking a turn in the cleaning rotation once a month.
There will still be people who won't want even that because they're mentally ill or pathologically misanthropic, but for many other homeless who do want to get back on their feet it would be a godsend.
If economic trends continue as they have we will need such measures, and even many of us might find we need them too, no matter what skills and education we might have.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 1) by FuzzyTheBear on Wednesday March 29 2017, @02:29PM
Remember ?
This is an announcement from Genetic Control:
"It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on humanoid height."
[Extract from coversation of Joe Ordinary in Local Puborama]
"I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the
properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold.
It's said now that people will be shorter in height,
they can fit twice as many in the same building site.
(they say it's alright),
Beginning with the tenants of the town of Harlow,
in the interest of humanity, they've been told they must go,
told they must go-go-go-go."
Prophecy ? Almost there :)
(Score: 3, Informative) by RedBear on Wednesday March 29 2017, @03:56PM (2 children)
A bit of perspective from the world of RVs and the "tiny house" movement: There are many people who live full-time in various sizes of RVs, from very small bumper-hitch towable travel trailers to 25,000lb fifth-wheel trailers that need to be towed with medium-duty trucks (just shy of semi-tractor size vehicles). 44 sq yds is nearly 400 sq ft which is actually quite a lot of room. There are some pretty sweet fifth-wheel RVs with multiple slide-outs that I would love to live in full-time, and many people do, even with families. Just google "fifth wheel interior" and prepare to be amazed.
Above a limit of about 430 sq ft the RV industry no longer wants you to market it as a "mobile" RV and you enter a category they call "park model" RVs. They're really just made to be towed to a permanent location where they will have their wheels removed or otherwise be modified to become a permanent residential home with typical residential utility hookups and appliances not designed to go on the road beyond the initial move.
The tiny house movement has many examples of stationary or towable houses that are livable for one person down to around 130 sq ft, and that's smaller than the minimum 16 sq m in the summary. Many tiny homes are sub-300 sq ft with couples living in them long-term. Point being, certain notions have long been put forth by building code commissions about what the minimum necessary space is for people to live in while maintaining good health, but in reality it is entirely up to the person or persons living in that space and the opportunities the area provides for spending time outside that space. People can often get by just fine, and some are even much happier, in very compact living spaces. Those who don't like it and feel the need for more space end up moving out to suburbia (or further out to "exurbia").
A balance will always be struck between people who are willing to put up with what some might consider a "cramped" space in the middle of a bustling metropolis with a short commute to work or shopping, versus a horrible long daily commute out to an isolated home in suburbia with no nearby shopping, dining or entertainment. So-called "closet" apartments are already the reality in places like Tokyo and New York City, and have been for a long time. Based on the way I've seen many people living quite happily in tiny homes and apartments, I'm not sure that it does a place like London any real good trying to artificially limit the ability of people to find affordable housing in a high-density metropolitan environment.
YouTube is chock full of really neat "tiny home" videos for anyone interested in seeing people cleverly living in remarkably small spaces.
.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:49PM
My main concern is that living in something that small, in London weather, will drive the least resilient people absolutely postal.
Let's hope they walk to work, because that kind of population density is also bad for the roads.
But I'm aware that 16m^2 is a lot more than what millions get in Hong Kong or Singapore.
And I've got a coworker somehow working from home, where "home" is an expando RV with 3 kids...
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Thursday March 30 2017, @02:55PM
If the apartment costs 10x and is smaller. Then perhaps mobile RV home is the better solution?
Think of all the cash the rent-seeking bank and landlords will miss out on.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @06:20PM
T.V. Flash on all Dial-A-Program Services
This is an announcement from Genetic Control:
"It is my sad duty to inform you of a four foot restriction on humanoid height."
"I hear the directors of Genetic Control have been buying all the
properties that have recently been sold, taking risks oh so bold.
It's said now that people will be shorter in height,
they can fit twice as many in the same building site.
(they say it's alright),
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 30 2017, @08:22PM
They could snag one of these micro-flats and sleep standing up so they can split the rent with a roommate.