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Housing crisis
A House For Everyone May Not Be The Best Idea
Some reasons to rethink our living arrangements
Throughout most of history, people lived communally to some degree. Young people did not move to their own private cave, and building a new structure for every young adult was never the norm.
Modern American culture celebrates the ideal of leaving the parental nest just as soon as possible. The number of people living alone has more than doubled since 1960, according to from the Population Reference Bureau.
Most people do not want to live with anyone but their partner and children if they have them; it’s relatively unusual for single people to choose to have roommates if they can afford not to.
Living alone offers many freedoms, of course, privacy chief among them. There’s no judgment if you decide to leave dishes in the sink overnight or bring your date home. You can sit around in your underwear eating pizza and watching trash TV all night if you want.
It also means higher costs. Nobody else is chipping in on the rent and utilities. That’s obvious, but there’s another factor: It takes a lot more resources to provide a dwelling for every adult.
