Small Living

Been surfing the net regarding small living, or living in small spaces.

I've always had this desire to live around tons of people.  When I was a kid, I slept best when my parents had tons of people over in our 3-bedroom ranch house where I could leave the door open with the lights on and sleep with the noise of loud koreans laughing and yelling all night.  Lately, I've been thinking that small living is the only way to be around lots of people. 

I remember when I was living with PK and BC I was debating whether to buy a multi-family in Somerville or Dorchester, since it’d be cheaper.  PK insisted on just staying in Cambridge, and BC said that people all have a choice on whether to live in Cambridge or somewhere cheaper—in fact, BC said, it’s not that anywhere is cheaper, it’s just that living in Cambridge would be smaller for the same price.  You have to choose between living near people or living in a larger space.

There’s lots of problems with big living both ideologically and practically.  Generally, to live big, one needs to live in the suburbs.  Around Boston, the suburbs have a long history of exclusive zoning, from one- to two-acre minimum lot sizes for single family homes, forbidding multi-family homes, or just building moratoriums which basically say only those that have been able to buy houses are allowed to keep living in houses.  There’s a reason why there’s so few blacks and other minorities in the suburbs. 

Practically speaking, suburbs seem to breed loneliness and time-wasting.  Time wasting in having to mow giant lawns, maintain landscaping, and doing exterior maintenance.  In multi-family dwellings, all those things are split among multiple families, and generally since the lots and homes are smaller, there’s just less to have to waste time on.  Shared community spaces are much more practical, with parks and open space interspersed around multi-families and high-rises.  My sister had a baby last year, and living downstairs of us, she and her husband would naturally just come upstairs, or we’d go downstairs, and hang out regardless of whether the baby was awake or asleep.  In the suburbs, that would happen more rarely, and if I had my own baby, probably only when the babies were awake, since once the babies are put to bed, you can’t leave the kid at home and just drive over to a friend’s house.  But in a multi-unit building, you can just lock your door and carry the baby monitor over to your friend’s apartment and hang out.

I read this article about living in smaller spaces, and the author talked a little about the suburbs.  From http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2008.02-homes-urban-happiness-me-want-more-square-footage/

While we become dulled to the wonders of our new houses over time, we never get used to ongoing irritations, like tailgaters, or gridlock, or missing dinner with the family. And there is plenty of irritation to be had: the average Canadian now spends nearly twelve full days a year travelling between work and home.

I’ve been tempted by the suburbs myself. With their wide lawns and cul-de-sacs, they seem to offer a rough approximation of the pastoral landscapes that made our ancestors feel safe. This is an illusion. In the US, at least, people who live in low-density sprawl are more likely to die violently than their inner-city cousins — thanks mostly to car accidents. Meanwhile, a Columbia University study found that suburban kids are far more likely to get hooked on drugs and booze. Why? Not enough chill-out time with their parents, for one thing. And where are suburban parents in those crucial after-school hours? Drumming their dashboards on marathon commutes home from distant offices. We are fooled by the suburbs’ verdant disguise, even as they lock us into more dangerous lives.

When I was working at a large company, I started to see my roommates and minority friends mostly working in the city seeming to have happy commutes.  They’d actually run into each other on the subway sometimes, and most definitely when they got off at the same T-station since we all lived on the same subway stop.  I’d be stuck in traffic for up to two hours a day.  I tried to find a job in the city to avoid having to drive, and then eventually just switched careers (for more reasons that commuting, but commuting was one of them).  I now work, live, and church all within a half-mile radius circle. 

The main problem at this point is trying to see if this lifestyle is feasible in the long run.  If I had to, say, raise 4 kids in my current lifestyle, I’d need a 6-bedroom condo, which in this area would mean around 2000 or more sqft, which would cost an exorbitant amount.  I hate the idea of working to pay off a mortgage or pay rent.  If I can cut down that figure to around 1400 sqft, it’s a bit more feasible.  I also just like the idea of small living—having few belongings, getting out of the house a lot, traveling, etc.  Another dynamic is community, in trying to live in a place that others can live as well.  For me the biggest factors in choosing a long-term location are being able to live in the same building or next door with a bunch of close friends that share my values, good schools for any future children, and a large enough percentage of Asian Americans (minimum 20%) in the school system such that my kids can avoid as much minority-culture upbringing as possible. 

Anyway, here’s some articles I found on the web:

The Art of Living in Small Spaces, Claire Wolfe. http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/wolfe92.html

To people who’ve never done it, small-space living often sounds cramped and uncomfortable. Certainly it can become that way in a structure that’s poorly designed or if you get sloppy in your living habits.

But be clever and conscientious and you can have a very nice little life while saving a bundle, not only on construction, but on heating, air conditioning, maintenance, and furnishing. Oh yes, and on top of everything else, you’ll be giving the taxers a whole lot less to tax than your neighbors who’re building those 2,225 square-foot palaces.

20 Tips for Living in Small Spaces, http://myso-calledjapaneselife.blogspot.com/2007/02/20-tips-for-living-in-small-spaces.html

If you live with other people, work with their needs, not against them… My husband likes to come home from work and empty his pockets into a basket. If I don't give him a proper place, he'll start leaving things in other places which suit him…  If you live with someone and they constantly do something untidy or fail to put things away, you're probably fighting an uphill battle to get them to do it your way and are better off adjusting the way things are arranged to make it easier for them. This is a far bigger issue in small places because we have less completely private space.

H-mart

Commercial

Philip Pullman Fad

Hong Man Choi