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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."
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:22PM
"highly curated community of like-minded individuals"
So you mean "hugbox"?
(Score: 2, Funny) by nitehawk214 on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:50PM
So this would be tumblr in real life.
"Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:26PM
A version of Tumblr without the Internet's legendary ability to withstand a nuke?
It's a step in the right direction.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:52AM
Intersex, lesbian, bi-, non-monogomous...
Preferably also semi-nude or fully nude.
Or are there several different versions of tumblr?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:15PM
I think he meant https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_hug_(website) [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:46PM
They ask you for an email and a bit about yourself:
http://www.commonspace.io/get-involved/ [commonspace.io]
Have fun people.
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday November 11 2015, @08:53AM
> interview to move in somewhere
Yeah, no. I fill out your fucking application, show you my stubs, and pay your fucking application fee. You run your check and determine that I can pay the rent and am not a convicted felon, maybe check my references.
You let me in or don't, but the only words you're getting are "yes" and "no."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:02AM
I think it might also mean racism, until somebody calls them on it.
Only if it's all-Whites though. If it's all Black, it's all good.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:30PM
Rent a group house.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:38PM
"highly curated community of like-minded individuals"
no old people
(Score: 3, Interesting) by arulatas on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:41PM
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?
----- 10 turns around
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:48PM
>"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
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:32PM
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
Lighten up Francis.
(Score: 1) by Jtmach on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:19PM
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
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 4, Insightful) by snick on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:24PM
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
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]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:30AM
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
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?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:04PM
Any sane person over 35 could not stand their music, their dependency on silly closed source apps and their TV shows, anyway.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:39PM
I think this is a great idea, provided you don't end up with an asshole in your area. The real-world equivalent of and internet troll (I guess that would be a troll) would really take the fun out of this.
(Score: 5, Informative) by dyingtolive on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:52PM
Everyone is someone else's asshole.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by snick on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:26PM
If you can't spot the asshole in your first half hour in the dorm, then you ARE the asshole.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:39PM
Excellent! I love being the asshole.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @04:13PM
Isn't that pretty much the premise of The Human Centipede?
(Score: 3, Funny) by tibman on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:53PM
Does walking around naked at night count as "an asshole in your area"?
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Freeman on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:37PM
At the least you'd sure see one.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:57PM
I take it you never lived in the dormitory while in college?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:22AM
That's pretty much what it's like. I lived in a place almost exactly like the article describes, a big cinderblock building right across from CSUN with 3 stories and hundreds of rooms, although it wasn't officially part of the university and they allowed people of all ages to live there. It had a hotel-like layout, with internal carpeted hallways.
Even back then the youth were loud, obnoxious, with the stench of weed billowing down the hallways, spitting on the hallway rugs and leaving their trash-bags and pizza boxes in the hallways because they were too lazy to walk the few feet to the goddamn dumpster.
The cops were called often -- there were the attempted rapes, some members of a local junior college football team escaping from the law out a second-story window, a whole washing machine was jacked in a very messy manner (causing a flood on a first-floor hallway) there were always fire-alarms going off, people fucking in the jacuzzi in a very well-lit and visible area, drunks, graffitti, vandalism, and to top it all off the family P.I. of a rich junkie kid paying me surprise visits at 9pm on weeknights asking me where junkie-boy was and what he OD'd on this time.
And, again, that was in the nice part of town. If I were a property manager in charge of such a building I'd turn an obscene profit railroading tenants out and pocketing their security deposits (using non-renewal of a short-term lease, of course, since evicting tenants is damn near impossible in California). I would have a few paid mole tenants to fabricate complaints of "incidents."
You'd think that it would be just a bunch of quiet sperg shut-ins jacking off to Anime all day, but you'd be surprised what young adults get into.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @10:59AM
You'd think that it would be just a bunch of quiet sperg shut-ins jacking off to Anime all day
Superior people, you mean. It is the filthy normies you need to worry about.
(Score: 4, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:52PM
Without the asshole, who would everyone talk about and conspire behind?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @01:15AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:44PM
Not only the choice of channels (e.g reality TV, Sean Hannity on Fox News), but also the volume, for people with varying degrees of hearing impairment.
(Score: 2) by snick on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:27PM
Do millennials even watch TV? Most I know stream video on their laptops/tablets and don't bother with the big box in the living room. I would think that a TV in a shared space would mostly be used for sports.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @04:11PM
Do millennials even watch TV?
They don't, so the TV's are starting to watch the millennials [soylentnews.org] to even the score.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:46PM
Yes folks, these are our future leaders. You all better die young because this generation is pathetic. They will lead us into the Brave New World with their parents hovering over them making sure their feelings don't get hurt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:54PM
Said the little asshole that flushed my toilet 10 times because his crap clogged it... "I can't be responsible for flooding your bathroom". His parents were that type of moron raisers.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tibman on Tuesday November 10 2015, @09:55PM
Similar to some job interviews though. Culture fit is pretty important when you have to hear each other breathing all day.
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:20PM
I remember how nanny-state resident life was the one year I was stupid enough to go for a dorm room. This evokes a similar mentality of community where some head RA honcho is there lecturing you about your bad life choices.
Dorm life is really only geared towards immature 18 year olds who need some sort of supervision for their first year out from under their helicopter parents' thumbs.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Francis on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:36PM
I don't agree. It really depends on the school you've chosen. I lived in the dorms at two different colleges. At one they had those sorts of presentations, but they were never mandatory. You went if the topic was interesting and you stayed away if it wasn't. Nobody called roll, so only people there knew whether or not you showed up.
The other college I went to didn't have that at all. And for the most part, the college didn't pay any attention to what happened in the dorms as long as nobody complained and you didn't set the building on fire.
I was really glad I lived in the dorms, you meet "interesting" people and get a chance to develop yourself away from home, but don't have to deal with commuting to school and it's a lot more convenient than finding a room to rent off campus.
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:59PM
the college didn't pay any attention to what happened in the dorms as long as nobody complained and you didn't set the building on fire.
Thats what OP was probably getting at.
I was a little wild at 19 and sat thru a few lectures at both above and below the "this is going on your permanent record" line.
For example I actually invented a past time of hooking up a mic to a stereo, put the speakers in the window, and drunkenly lecture drunks at night. "Hey you dropped your wallet". "Your (meaningless subgroup) sucks" and so on. I'd lecture the neighboring dorms with various witty commentary. Oh and god help the drunk bastard thrown out by his girlfriend who yells up at the building trying to talk to her, we'd respond back for her, you see. I got written into the next years dorm contract of newly prohibited activities over that one.
It was a fairly liberal school and they didn't even kick out the weed smokers, so you can imagine their consternation at me.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 10 2015, @11:54PM
Stay classy, Ethanol.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:12AM
The other college I went to didn't have that at all. And for the most part, the college didn't pay any attention to what happened in the dorms as long as nobody complained and you didn't set the building on fire.
That's exactly how my dorm experience was. Overall, I mostly liked my dorm experience. It gave me friends I wouldn't have had otherwise.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:34AM
I lived in a dorm in college and it was fine. This was the 80s and so things may have changed, but there were no meetings, no counseling, no anything. The RA was there to make sure the place didn't burn down as another poster said, and that was it. The only time I ever got in any sort of trouble was on my very first night as a freshman, blasting the Violent Femmes at about 2 am, and the "trouble" was just a knock on the door and a request: "keep it down OK?" I'd already puked my guts out and was ready to pass out anyway, so I just went to bed. The worst part about the whole night was that if I hadn't gotten so drunk, I would have definitely gotten laid.
I can imagine that in the last 30 years things have gotten a bit more rigid.
(Score: 2) by EvilSS on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:50AM
I loved the dorms. Part of the fun was subverting that nanny-state. Alcohol free? Um, sure. Don't mind the guy running a liqueur store out of his room down the hall there. Or the party ..well... pretty much every night. Noise? What noise? Why on earth would be be running a sawzall at midnight in our room? Come on', you're crazy. Ah, good memories.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:32PM
-s:
Jonestown
Heaven's Gate
Symbionese Liberation Army
Scientology
I know from cults because I was in Lifespring - Los Angeles LP-19.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by throwaway28 on Tuesday November 10 2015, @10:35PM
Count me out. Problems I've had in the past,
Fuck that.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:05AM
This is an old idea - and it is TERRIBLE. (Oregon Experiment [wikipedia.org]) I lived in one for a while, and viewed many others, as they were the cheapest thing on the market in that area. Horrible, horrible places.
Imagine a shared apartment where you can't chose your roommates. You can't kick out a roommate who is abusive, noisy, or just a slob. Very high rates of depression amongst the inhabitants - the only ones that weren't, were never there (which is the only way to cope in that kind of space) The sane ones basically hibernate in their private unit (hence increased depression from isolation, which these.units claim to be a solution for). There really isn't any real privacy either. The worst of both worlds.
It's a shame, because as an architecture student at the time, I had heard about this and thought it sounded great (the other two books in the series are great). It only slightly works for student-age population where everyone is flexible enough to cope at least somewhat, but unless everyone has some sort of shared 'communal' ideology, it is an absolute nightmare for everyone - especially once people are adults launching careers (or even just working a day job - or worse yet, a night shift), or are old folks who should be in a retirement home, or are single parents, or meth-heads or junkies...
This is all hype to sell undersized units in a crashing economy.
(Score: 1) by VitalMoss on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:22AM
How many junkies do you know make 500 a month *minimum*?
(Score: 3, Informative) by dry on Wednesday November 11 2015, @07:03AM
Lots of functional junkies out there, just don't hear much about them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @08:03AM
In Eugene, Oregon (where this was), the units were dirt cheap (this was also in the 1990's when I was there), and of course when it comes to junkies they don't mind sleeping 5 to a room, and sometimes more because they don't care or notice who crashes there, or don't know who has or hasn't paid, or who is just couch surfing friend-of-a-friend, no matter how long they're there. Besides, junkies/alcoholics/meth-addicts aren't the only people you don't want as roommates. Plenty of assholes, creeps and other unpleasant people need places to live too. What was saddest were the old people with no family living on social security. Depressing as hell.
Additionally you get people making a mess or break something in the common area, nobody will fess up to it, it never gets cleaned and just gets filthier until some meth-head goes on a cleaning spree.
Not to mention security sucks, because it's just hollow-core door that opens into the common areas with just a bathroom-style doorknob lock. Theft was rampant. I lost alot of stuff.
There are ways to do bottom-income housing that works. This is not it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @05:33PM
Looks irrelevant
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @12:27AM
The book describes the theory behind the dorm-style housing described in TFA. Surprisingly Wikipedia doesn't have a better description, since it won awards from people who never had to live in them. The style was reproduced prolifically (off-campus, for the general public) in the area. Great in theory, dismal failure in practice.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by kurenai.tsubasa on Wednesday November 11 2015, @12:21AM
I think pretty much all I have to say here is that grown-ups don't live in dorms.
If you're living in a dorm, you're not a grown-up. You may be able to legally buy booze, but you're not a grown-up.
Once you grow up, you realize there really is no way to share living space with another grown-up unless there's something deeper going on than just “roommates:” romance or being a blood relative are the most common, so a “we're family” situation of some kind.
Otherwise the lowest common denominator usually takes over. All it takes is one roommate who refuses to do his/her dishes or adhere to some kind of dishwashing rotation, and you're never going to have a clear sink without putting way more effort into it than you would with your own living space. That seemed to be the most common failure mode before I decided to buy a house (and even while experimenting with using the spare room for lodgers). The stove top becomes a mess and the counter tops completely unsanitary in under a month.
Where's the good knife and chopping board? Where's the sauce pan and strainer? Why are they dirty when I need them yet again?! Why am I the only one who rinses dishes before putting them on the dirty side of the sink?! How on earth does $roommate consider this clean?! It's got dried soap all over it and wtf is this gunk!!! Argh!!!
One guy I lived with for a year or so (just an acquaintance, no romantic interest) had a partial solution. He kept his own set of cookware, silverware, bowls, plates, etc in his room. Never had to worry about his dishes piling up, and he never had to worry about “why are all the plates dirty again?!”
At least in my experience “quiet hours” is the easiest thing to manage. Everything else just becomes an endless pain in the ass.
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Wednesday November 11 2015, @09:09AM
Having my own dishes was the way I dealt with my filthy flatmates during university. Cokk for myself; do my own dishes and put them back in my room. The kitchen was always a mess but I just worked around that.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:49PM
God bless you, you nailed it.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday November 11 2015, @07:20PM
I think pretty much all I have to say here is that grown-ups don't live in dorms.
Grown-Ups didn't use to live in dorms. Now it's all the housing they can afford...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Wednesday November 11 2015, @02:36AM
I wonder how much of this is really "lonely" millennials, and how much is the fact that student debt is really high, rents are really high, and good paying jobs few and far between.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday November 11 2015, @08:12AM
TFA is basically an advertisement for this real estate developer, so the whole idea might be fantasy in the first place. Rents must be insane though if someone would pay $900/month for a "dorm" when that could easily be a mortgage payment on a $100K+ house.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday November 11 2015, @10:03AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @10:24AM
Where the fuck doesn't it? I'll tell you where: In areas where it is foolish and wasteful to live in. If you expect a mansion or a giant house, no wonder you can't find any houses for below $100K. There are acceptable houses in many places for under $60K. At least in the US.
So don't live in some area where house prices and living expenses are extremely high unless you just don't like having money. At least if you can avoid it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @05:12PM
Places where the houses are that cheap are places where the jobs don't pay anything.
You need a certain amount of money to raise a family and pay for your own retirement. Places where the houses are that cheap don't tend to provide enough for that. Want some real estate for cheap in inner Detroit? It's cheap for a reason.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 12 2015, @11:25AM
Places where the houses are that cheap are places where the jobs don't pay anything.
And places where living expenses are ridiculously high often negate any gains you receive from being paid more. Not always, but often. It's about finding the right location, which many people don't try hard enough to do.
But if you're paying $100,000 for a house, chances are you made the wrong choice. Acting like good ("good" doesn't mean mansions) houses below that price don't exist is absolutely silly.
You need a certain amount of money to raise a family and pay for your own retirement.
Yeah, and most people seem to squander their money on useless garbage. Expensive phone service, unreliable and expensive vehicles, expensive cable TV service, unnecessarily expensive housing, not keeping their average price per meal under $2, not negotiating with companies for lower prices even when it is possible, etc. It's about knowing what to spend your money on, but people have been convinced by our consumerist society that they need to waste their money on the latest shiny gadgets.
Places where the houses are that cheap don't tend to provide enough for that.
And yet, there are many people raising families there.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Thursday November 12 2015, @02:45PM
Where the fuck doesn't it?
I've moved in the UK from one of the cheapest places to live to one of the most expensive outside of London. Where I was before, $100K would just about buy you a house so far outside of the city that you'd need to own a car (and drive for 20-30 minutes each way) to get to work, which would likely be a false economy - you'd spend far more on the car than the difference in the house prices over the time that you were living there.
Partly property was cheap because there were few jobs. Now, I'm living somewhere where $100K would barely cover the deposit, but jobs are fairly easy to find.
I had a look at a few random places in the US. The only places that I found for under $100K were either so far away from any town that you'd spend a huge amount of your time and money just getting anywhere if you had a job or hobbies that involved leaving the house, and were crappy wood constructions that would be a huge maintenance cost.
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @03:55PM
I had a look at a few random places in the US. The only places that I found for under $100K were either so far away from any town that you'd spend a huge amount of your time and money just getting anywhere if you had a job or hobbies that involved leaving the house, and were crappy wood constructions that would be a huge maintenance cost.
Again, I have no idea where you're looking, but $100K is totally unreasonable in most of the US. Random places indeed.
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Sunday November 15 2015, @08:52PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:24AM
As an undergrad I lived in a dorm my 1st year, and used the high density of students to make a lot of beer by proxy...
For my PhD I put up with a college house for exactly 6 months before the sheer noise of the location, the hike to the lab and the general incompetence of the other humans drove me to a flat by a canal (no motor traffic), and a very nice pub.
And *every* time I see the word "Luxury" I think "which sucker is going to fall for that?".
300 sq ft is smaller than some Day's Inn suites, no?
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Wednesday November 11 2015, @07:55AM
Hmmm...I remember a similar place where they did lots of talk about "building community" with communal areas and the like, where was that? Oh yeah...Pruitt-Igoe [wikipedia.org]. I mean you'd think these people would have heard a little phrase known as "the tragedy of the commons" but I guess those that don't remember their history? Doomed to repeat it.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday November 11 2015, @09:39AM
Many apartment buildings are apartment units built with 3 - 4 bedrooms with a shared common area and kitchen. So, between 6 - 8 people per unit. While it is possible to rent the whole unit, it is not common since the rent is priced per bedroom. You do not get to decide who your roommates are - your landlord does - so you could end up with great roommates or shitty roommates. The only recourse for a shitty roommate is to move out when your lease is up.
Most people I know who have lived in these units only did it because it suited them financially (i.e., the rent was cheap enough and they had tolerable roommates) and all of them moved to single apartments as soon as they could. In SE Asia, the expat population in these buildings are usually English "teachers" (not real teachers and that is another topic entirely) so they have common experiences. Most of the population of these complexes skews heavily younger - under 40 with a big peak in the 24 - 28 year old range.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday November 11 2015, @10:21AM
Why the hell is staying single or not marrying a problem? Some people are asexual or simply do not want to get into a relationship (maybe they aren't attracted to real people, think it's too costly, think it's inconvenient, etc.), and I don't see that as a problem. You think it will decrease the population? In a world of 7 billion humans, that's good. All this pressure to get into relationships, have sex, get married, etc. is just silly, but at the same time, people who don't want to do those things but are too weak to resist the pressure have their own issues.
Marriage is just some silly social ritual with magical thinking and undeserved legal benefits attached to it. Being married doesn't make a relationship good, and some people choose to be in relationships but never marry. I'm tired of marriage being treated as something that's an inevitability if you get into a relationship; that is pure nonsense.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tempest on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:06PM
But the generation is also notoriously social, having been raised on the Internet and the constant communication it provides.
And I would guess most of them would only walk through the common area on the way to their room while texting. This is going beyond millenials now, where people aren't interacting with each other unless through a device. Go to a restaurant now, and watch people sitting at a table hardly speaking to each other but staring at their phones. Maybe that's "social", but that doesn't mean they talk to people.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 11 2015, @03:53PM
It is unfair to the millenials who actually have a functional, successful life to lump them in with the losers who seem to get all the attention.
If said losers get tired of, or evicted from, mom's basement they might as well live in collective "nerd pens" so they can continue to mis-define "social" as poking a phone with one hand and doing god-knows-what with the other.
Meanwhile, well-adjusted successful young adults should be congratulated on their success.