Archivist said:
Though I think it is amusing to poke fun at the size of some of the units, I have no problem with small units and think it is an economic fact of life, as Mike states. I also think that cities that historically have small or expensive housing (New York, Hong Kong) have as a result a more vibrant streetlife and more people in restaurants, so I think there is a kind of public good that results from these small units.

I myself would probably find it difficult to live in a unit that size. So I don't buy one.
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What about the occassional few who would like to raise a family?
 
There are lots of places to raise a family in the city. People's expectations of what they need are temporal and subject to change. I grew up in a wartime house in Ottawa with no dining room, and three bedrooms, and one tiny bathroom. We had six kids. That was normal. Without suggesting that you could raise a family in one of the 400 sq ft condos, less in my joke Twig unit, what people think they "need" right now to raise a family is a passing moment in time, and expectations can easily be rolled back to how people lived more frequently 30 years ago, without any trouble at all.
 
Many a family has been raised in 3-400 sqft units in HK or Singapore. I don't think many of the kids are permanently psychologically scarred in significant ways.
 
Archivist said:
There are lots of places to raise a family in the city.
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golodhendil said:
Many a family has been raised in 3-400 sqft units in HK or Singapore. I don't think many of the kids are permanently psychologically scarred in significant ways.
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I don’t want to focus on this, but unless you have actually raised a family, you cannot possibly say so casually that this is no problem - or that you think people in another country, forced by poverty to live in tiny homes have, in your opinion "not been scarred" - because you don’t know. Just because people survived an ordeal does not make that ordeal something to be mass produced and inflicted on societies elsewhere. The fact that companies are making a lot of money producing these tiny units should ring a bell in your head.

When you say “there are lots of places in the city to raise kids” – I assume you are referring to places that are affordable for a young family? If this is the case where is that place in Toronto? I am concerned that we are building a downtown for singles or couples only – families will be forced to go to the suburbs.
 
Size is relative

Part of the process of suburbanization was increased consumption not only of land, but also of materials due to gradually increasing larger houses.

The only interesting (and ironic) familial change that went in the other direction was the size of families!

In other words, the size of families gradually decreased while the size of our homes gradually increased. So much for true 'need', huh?
 
Archivist said:
... and expectations can easily be rolled back to how people lived more frequently 30 years ago, without any trouble at all.
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I don't think expectations could easily be rolled back. I think in today's hyper consumerism society, with endless credit, it would take a 1930's style depression or some apocalyptic event before the youth today could give up their sense of entitlement. For the last 20 or 30 years, young people think it is their right to be homeowners fresh out of college or just newlyweds.

Homeownership used to be something that was beyond all but the upper-middle and upper classes, certainly not for the work-a-day crowd. These days, the common man has Caribbean Vacations, SUV's, a house full of electronic gadgetry and for that matter a house to put them in.

It is this sense of entitlement that has generated the tiny condo as a viable market option. Despite it only being an amusing joke floor plan, I think Archivist's "Twig" is the shape of things to come.
 
There are plenty of places to raise a family downtown even if most of the highrise units nowadays are designed with the investor in mind. Prices are very high but the savings with the record low interest rates are much higher over the term. It won't always be like this. Lots of family sized resale out there and of course plenty of the new, $850,000, 2000 sq ft, infill townhouses if you can afford it. However, I wouldn't expect to find a 400 square foot garage anywhere.
 
Big Daddy said:
I don’t want to focus on this, but unless you have actually raised a family, you cannot possibly say so casually that this is no problem - or that you think people in another country, forced by poverty to live in tiny homes have, in your opinion "not been scarred" - because you don’t know. Just because people survived an ordeal does not make that ordeal something to be mass produced and inflicted on societies elsewhere. The fact that companies are making a lot of money producing these tiny units should ring a bell in your head.
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Or perhaps, because myself/my relatives/my friends were raised in this type of "ordeal"?
More importantly, the small size of these "tiny homes" aren't because of "poverty" (per capita GDP of HK and Singapore are higher than Canada, though their rich-poor gap is worsening) - many of these units in HK, eg, sell for much more psf than most residential units in Canada.
 
Oh man..."ordeal"?!!!

I can't believe perception has become so distorted that living with less has somehow been twisted into an 'ordeal'!!!!

Personally, I think most of us 'currently' could do some downsizing and it wouldn't hurt us in the least...in fact, I've personally been doing my best to 'purge' and 'liberate' myself from the clutter that my 'stuff' has caused slowly over the years, most of which I never use or will ever use. The more 'stuff' I purge, the happier I find myself.

I'll be really happy when I've purged to the point when I come home and my place (small by the way) looks like a well planned condo showroom unit, which to me means no clutter with useless stuff and efficiently designed uses of limited space, includeing vertical space.
 
Archivist said:
There are lots of places to raise a family in the city. People's expectations of what they need are temporal and subject to change. I grew up in a wartime house in Ottawa with no dining room, and three bedrooms, and one tiny bathroom. We had six kids.
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My dad grew up in a similar house, but with 7 kids...one bedroom had 2 sets of bunk beds.

Traynor said:
I don't think expectations could easily be rolled back. I think in today's hyper consumerism society, with endless credit, it would take a 1930's style depression or some apocalyptic event before the youth today could give up their sense of entitlement. For the last 20 or 30 years, young people think it is their right to be homeowners fresh out of college or just newlyweds.
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If we paid more attention to the design of the stuff we buy, including the finishes and workmanship of our homes, instead of just trying to spend as little as possible, maybe we'd be more willing to spend more time physically closer to our belongings and our actual house. Maybe we'd value space for space's sake much less. I don't want to sit 2 feet away from a terrible condo paintjob, for instance, but I can buy attractive appliances and compact furniture and add crown molding and be happy occupying a smaller space. If a tiny condo has a great layout and you have nice things and it's all well-built, you can still max your credit cards acquiring everything you're entitled to in a consumer-driven society...except the empty space between objects that comes with all those houses in Aurora and Oakville.
 
Wow. 178 sq ft. I could happily live in spot that big permanently (I lived in res at Carleton for two years) but I would need a balcony, which poor Mr Motl does not have.
 
Big Daddy said:
The fact that companies are making a lot of money producing these tiny units should ring a bell in your head.
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You all overlooked this point. Why do you suppose there are hundreds of developers trying to sell tiny apartments to people? Its really quite simple. The smaller they are, the larger the return for the developer. Do you honestly think they are heroic efficiency experts trying to save our society from the evils of consumption and consumerism and lead us to a brighter future where we all learn to live with less and buy less? Or are they simply trying to maximize the return on their investment in a piece of land?

I think it’s wonderful that you think we should downsize to help these developers , but isn’t there an argument that the developers have a role to play here too in providing decent sized accommodation for humans instead of simply accepting smaller and smaller units because they say so?
 
Big Daddy said:
You all overlooked this point. Why do you suppose there are hundreds of developers trying to sell tiny apartments to people? Its really quite simple. The smaller they are, the larger the return for the developer. Do you honestly think they are heroic efficiency experts trying to save our society from the evils of consumption and consumerism and lead us to a brighter future where we all learn to live with less and buy less? Or are they simply trying to maximize the return on their investment in a piece of land?

I think it’s wonderful that you think we should downsize to help these developers , but isn’t there an argument that the developers have a role to play here too in providing decent sized accommodation for humans instead of simply accepting smaller and smaller units because they say so?
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But do developers actually make more money by producing smaller units? Presumably $PSF remains the same no matter the size of the unit. If anything, wouldn't building smaller units be less profitable because they require more materials and infrastructure to service, as well as occupy more floor space that could otherwise be sold?

And if it is the case that selling two 400 sq. ft. units is not more profitable than selling one 800 sq. ft. unit, perhaps the reason that developers are producing smaller units is that they are easier to sell to consumers. The logical conclusion is that smaller units are easier to sell because that is what the market is demanding. I think it's more accurate to say that what is happening is a result of market forces and social/cultural/economic factors, and not simply the greed of developers. That being the case, this recent trend may very well be evidence of a maturing cultural attitude regarding the importance of home location vs. home size.
 
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