How big is your home? Does it feel big enough?
I was scrolling Twitter recently and was struck by
this tweet from Jenny Schuetz, an urban economist and researcher at Brookings who I’ve referenced a few times in past newsletters.
Like most things on Twitter, it’s important to not take one tweet at face value – it just doesn’t tell the whole story. I’m fairly certain Jenny’s referencing how folks reacted to
her tweet about this story, which describes a young person who lives in a
95-square-foot apartment in Tokyo. People were
kind of pissed at her for suggesting that this is a morals issue, versus an opportunity for greedy investors to cram people into unlivable, tiny spaces and charge them a ton of money.
This is the part of the housing policy discourse that makes me feel like I know absolutely nothing.
When someone suggests we need to modify zoning laws and building codes to make it easier to build (much) smaller apartments so that more people can afford to live in that city or community, their assumptions about market economics, cultural norms, morality, lived experience, and so much more are all wrapped up in that suggestion. Twitter isn’t real life, and also Twitter is a place where really divergent points of view can have a platform.
How are we supposed to make sense of this? It’s tough to identify “trusted sources” because each person who talks about housing contains a ton of varying identities and belief systems, particularly ones about the way the economy operates (or how they think it
should operate). But I think
it’s important for people with privilege (class, race, property ownership status, and so much more) to understand the housing debate because they (we, I…) are uniquely positioned to have an impact on local housing policy. Because most of these decisions are made at the local level, and people can, for better
or worse, actually have an impact.
How big should our homes actually be? And how do we avoid policy changes that open the floodgates to greedy capitalists and do nothing to make it more affordable for people to put a roof over their heads? How might a single person experiencing homelessness feel about home size, versus a single young professional who values living near the office or fun city stuff? These aren’t questions I can answer, but they’re questions I’m glad I’m aware of now. I hope you feel the same, First name / friend.
I share about 800 square feet with Geoff and our two dogs, and honestly…it doesn’t feel big enough. But how much of that can be attributed to square footage, and how much of it is actually just poor layout design? How much of that too-small feeling can I attribute to my own cultural values?
