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posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:19PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-until-you-get-a-family dept.

Alana Semuels writes in The Atlantic that Millennials want the chance to be alone in their own bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, but they also want to be social and never lonely.That's why real estate developer Troy Evans is starting construction on a new space in Syracuse called Commonspace that he envisions as a dorm for Millennials that will feature 21 microunits, each packed with a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living space into 300-square-feet. The microunits surround shared common areas including a chef's kitchen, a game room, and a TV room. "We're trying to combine an affordable apartment with this community style of living, rather than living by yourself in a one-bedroom in the suburbs," says Evans. The apartments will be fully furnished to appeal to potential residents who don't own much (the units will have very limited storage space). The bedrooms are built into the big windows of the office building—one window per unit—and the rest of the apartment can be traversed in three big leaps. The units will cost between $700 and $900 a month. "If your normal rent is $1,500, we're coming in way under that," says John Talarico. "You can spend that money elsewhere, living, not just sustaining."

Co-living has also gained traction in a Brooklyn apartment building that creates a networking and social community for its residents and where prospective residents answer probing questions like "What are your passions?" and "Tell us your story (Excite us!)." If accepted, tenants live in what the company's promotional materials describe as a "highly curated community of like-minded individuals." Millennials are staying single longer than previous generations have, creating a glut of people still living on their own in apartments, rather than marrying and buying homes. But the generation is also notoriously social, having been raised on the Internet and the constant communication it provides. This is a generation that has grown accustomed to college campuses with climbing walls, infinity pools, and of course, their own bathrooms. Commonspace gives these Milliennials the benefits of living with roommates—they can save money and stay up late watching Gilmore Girls—with the privacy and style an entitled generation might expect. "It's the best of both worlds," says Michelle Kingman. "You have roommates, but they're not roommates."


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by arulatas on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:41PM

    by arulatas (3600) on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:41PM (#261447)

    Now that brings up an interesting point. If retirement homes can exclude people based on their age. Would it be possible for this type of environment be able to do the same? Or is it that the elderly are a protected group so discrimination is not OK against them?

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:48PM (#261450)

    >"Or is it that the elderly are a protected group so discrimination is not OK against them?"

    That is correct. You can discriminate in favor of the elderly, but not against them.

  • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:56PM

    by jdavidb (5690) on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:56PM (#261456) Homepage Journal
    Another great case where people just ought to simply be able to do what they want with what they own. My house that I'm renting out; my rules.
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    ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
    • (Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:32PM

      by Francis (5544) on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:32PM (#261464)

      Which is illegal because the owner's rules frequently involved not renting to certain types of people. Also, people who rent don't necessarily have much choice about whom they rent from or even if they rent at all.

      You get to make some decisions, but even if there's a no pets policy, that doesn't mean you get to exclude people with service animals. Ultimately, you can remove the listing from the market, but that means not renting to anybody.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:42PM (#261468)

        Lighten up Francis.

        • (Score: 1) by Jtmach on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:19PM

          by Jtmach (1481) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:19PM (#261723)

          You just made the list, buddy. Also, I don't like no one touching my stuff. So just keep your meathooks off. If I catch any of you guys in my stuff, I'll kill you. And I don't like nobody touching me. Any of you homos touch me, and I'll kill you.

      • (Score: 2) by jdavidb on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:52PM

        by jdavidb (5690) on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:52PM (#261472) Homepage Journal
        My point is the solution to the above problem is for it to not be illegal.
        --
        ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:24PM

          by snick (1408) on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:24PM (#261480)

          Yeah, well ...
          We've already seen where that road goes. It isn't pretty.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:41AM

        by frojack (1554) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:41AM (#261508) Journal

        Ultimately, you can remove the listing from the market, but that means not renting to anybody.

        No, it just means renting via word of mouth, and not publicly listing it. Its the public offering that brings all the regulations.
        If you offer it privately to a friend's son or someone in your church, or someone at work, you have much more control. If you make the offer, rather than having them apply to rent, It prevents you from becoming a "public entity".

        But Service Animals? That is the newest scam on the block. [psychologytoday.com] The more vests and certifications the owner shows you, the less likely it is REALLY a service animal.

        http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-31646970 [bbc.com]

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        • (Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:30AM

          by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:30AM (#261562) Journal

          Correct. I occasionally still take on a lodger. It's only for somebody in need that I can personally meet beforehand. (In this sense, it's a bit of reverse-discrimination according to local ordinance, but it's mostly under the table, and I only expect what they can pay me.)

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @11:23PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @11:23PM (#261973)

        Which is illegal because the owner's rules frequently involved not renting to certain types of people. Also, people who rent don't necessarily have much choice about whom they rent from or even if they rent at all.
        You get to make some decisions, but even if there's a no pets policy, that doesn't mean you get to exclude people with service animals. Ultimately, you can remove the listing from the market, but that means not renting to anybody.

        Unfortunately, this screws over the very people one wishes to help with such policies.

        There are over 10,000 vacant/partially vacant rental properties in San Francisco whose owners have gone Galt and refuse to rent them out thanks to Fan Francisco's draconian rental regulations that leave landlords open to rampant abuse from tenants. Thus the costs for many potential landlords from not renting, the lost income, is offset my the risks associated with renting. For the owners, they make the rational decision, based on risk/reward, to not rent their property.

        http://kalw.org/post/growing-number-san-francisco-landlords-not-renting [kalw.org]

        So instead of helping renters they are instead hurt by having far less choice in rental properties.

        Not only that, but such regulations make discrimination more likely and with fewer consequences.

        Lets say I have a rental property and 20% of the local population are minority and I don't like them. Absent any regulation, everyone who has a unit to rent is renting it out. If I choose to not rent to minorities, what happens? I only have 80% of the customers. Fewer tenants competing for my units mean that I will on average be able to charge less for rent than others who do not discriminate. Depending on the property, potentially MUCH less.

        Now, bring in onerous renter regulation like you have in San Francisco and elsewhere on the West Coast and what happens? You immediately drive small-time landlords off the market. People with an apartment in their basement or attic are not going to want to deal with having a tenant living under the same roof that they cannot easily get rid of. While they may miss the money, assuming they get paid, the risk of getting stuck with a bad tenant and not being allowed to get rid of them is just too much risk. In many areas, that is a massive chunk of the rental stock off the market, sometimes over 10%.

        So, I'm the racist who is still renting and now there are 10% fewer units available to renters, what happens? It means that I have far more people interested in my property, more people willing to pay a premium to get it, meaning I get to be more... discriminatory in who I rent to. I won't turn down that black family because of racism, I'll turn them down because the white family was willing to pay more due to restricted supply.

        In a free market, discrimination is automatically punished to reflect the level of discrimination. You think it was an accident that the Jim Crow South was an economic backwater until Jim Crow went away at the state level?

        Ironically, it is "protective" regulation that make discrimination cheaper to partake in. Is it any wonder why places with restrictive rent regulation and urban growth boundaries, like Portland and San Francisco, are some of the whitest places in the country?

        There is plenty of space in the SF area that could be developed, and isn't much good for anything else, anyone with Google Maps can see that, so don't try the "nowhere to build" argument. Thanks to the urban growth boundary, as well as height restrictions on buildings, rents are in the stratosphere.

        Makes you wonder if the Klan really died in the 60s, or if they just ditched the robes and changed their methods while keeping the "D" next to their name?