Hacker News Reader

Comment by InvisibleUp | Hacker News Reader

I think a large part of this (in the USA, anyways) is due to how modern cities are structured.

It used to be, 100 or 200 years ago, that your workplace, your home, and your usual hang-out place were all within reasonable walking distance of each other. It wasn't a huge deal to go out and meet new people, as you'd naturally bump into them every day.

Nowadays we have a large portion of people in bedroom communities, isolated in a sea of houses. They drive in isolated cars to their workplaces, swing by to get some Starbucks on the way in, and that's the extent of their social interaction. Apart from libraries and parks, there's not many places that you can regularly go and just "hang out" without spending money just to exist in that space. It's incredibly easy to go for weeks or months without any substantial social contact outside of work or your few neighbors.

I feel like this is a reason why internet organizations and social media have exploded in popularity, for that matter. It's the new "default place" to hang out and get social interaction, for better or for worse.

(I expanded on this in an article I wrote, https://invisibleup.com/articles/31/, if you want to check that out.)

View on HN

I miss living in the dormitory in college. Everything I needed was within a 3 minute walk. The dorm was full of my peers. There was always something fun going on.

You had a room just big enough for a bed, a desk, and a sink. Everything else was common.

If I was a developer I'd build a "dorm for adults" right next to places like Amazon, but at least around here zoning won't permit it.

It's great if you're single and don't have many possessions. Inexpensive, too.

WeWork tried that. It was called WeLive. It flopped.[1]

[1] https://therealdeal.com/2020/06/08/wework-may-abandon-welive...

To be fair, it flopped during a pandemic that ate both WeWork's and WeLive's business models.

To be fair, WeWork was pretty much a pyramid scene, so maybe not the best comparison.

How was WeWork a pyramid scheme for its visitors? I'm not seeing it.

Seattle briefly allowed microapartments, before single-family home owners fought back and got them killed again. You can see one here: https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/d/seattle-apodment-su... $900/mo for 198 square feet. Kitchen sink, but no stove/oven. You do get your own bathroom, at least.

Feeling a little agoraphobic with the above floor plan? Don't like those vast sweeps of empty space? No problem, try $875/mo for 147 square feet: https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/apa/d/seattle-apodment-su...

Carefully examine the bathroom photos. No sink! You wash your hands in the kitchenette. Easy enough, when it's three steps away. (After all, where would you put a bathroom sink? The entire apartment is the size of an RV.)

One upside: if the landlord gets on your nerves, it would be real, real easy to move out. A one-backpack apartment.

Oh, that looks like the average apartment used by a couple/single people here in Europe. Same price too.

Wut? I always wonder what people mean when they say 'in Europe', as if there weren't vast cultural and economic differences. Remember e.g. Switzerland and Albania are both in (continental) Europe.

A couple of years ago I inquired about the prize in a room in a hotel in San Francisco I happened to walk up to -- the front desk person cautioned that it offered 'european style' shared bathrooms. plonk -- I never encountered a hotel in Europe with shared bathrooms, but I've never been to Albania either.

I remember the geography of my home continent very well, I travel around here a lot.

The hotels with shared bathrooms are very common even in Switzerland, and everywhere else in Europe.

The small apartments are more common the richer the country. Larger apartments are more common in the poorer countries. You can find the small ones in every capital city though.

> The hotels with shared bathrooms are very common even in Switzerland, and everywhere else in Europe.

Truly curious. Could you provide a link to one?

https://www.hostelswiss.ch/

Note that those are called hostels. I don't remember seeing shared bathrooms in hotels.

This change of naming happened during the past two decades. You're technically correct, though. Note that you can get a private room in the hostel I linked, that's not universal - and I feel that moves it towards hotel.

I sense a confusion of the terms hotel and hostel. That 's' separates worlds.

As a young lad (on a tight budget) I stayed in youth hostels in Europe and USA as well. Those (at that time) not only were equipped with shared bathrooms, but also commonly with bunk beds in dormitories (separated by gender -- yeah, such were the times) and usually expected you to take on chores. I enjoyed my stay as it allowed me to go to places I couldn't otherwise afford and meet like-minded young travelers, but it would be impossible to mistake those places for hotels.

Well the line is pretty blurred. But you're right that what used to be called three-star hotels is now primarily a thing of the east, while the west calls them hostels.

https://starcity.com/

Seems to be trying it, rebranded as 'co-living' as I imagine dormitories holds a bit of a stigma.

College dorms house a set of people that have been carefully vetted by an admissions committee. I'm not sure if it's possible to recreate such a community and foster trust among a group of adults without some form of prior vetting or selection.

That's a good observation. It suggests that the adult dorm could work if they all, say, worked at the same company.

If only you'd suggested that :)

You're right, vetting would be necessary. Dorms work because the population is (generally speaking) in the same age cohort and stage of their lives, there for a common purpose, and they have skin in the game i.e. they risk their tuition and completion of their degree if they don't abide by the rules. That's the other thing, students sign on to a code of conduct and are held to account by staff and volunteers. An adult dorm would work but it would need to follow a similar setup.

Perhaps cohousing, or coliving?

You're stepping closer to the concept of a company town. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Not if it's organized as a corporation where all of the residents are voting shareholders. That's generally the model that most cohousing and intentional communities tend towards.

> A company town is a place where practically all stores and housing are owned by the one company that is also the main employer.

I'm not familiar with varying types, but AFAIU (or hope), the organizer / owner is not usually the main employer. It's foremost a community where people live. Some people work there or self-employ, but it's not usually a corporate-dictated, top-down governed establishment, which would be something quite different. At least in the examples I know of.

And most importantly, people move out of dorms eventually.

Even if there is a troublemaker people can't get rid of, they'll graduate sooner or later and will be forced to move out.

A friend of mine actually lived in a place like this in Japan for a while - shoebox room, and then generous communal areas for cooking / living. It sounded like a great idea to me, and when I moved to London I tried to find somewhere similar.

There were a couple of places in this space when I was looking but I didn't go with them for a few reasons: - cost was high - contractual terms were long (6-12mo minimum) - reviews were mixed, but the general vibe was a "tragedy of the commons" type situation - location / transit links didn't appear great

I ended up boarding with an older couple for a while before finding a more traditional share house with other young professionals.

If I'd been able to try it out with a 1/2 month minimum I would've looked past the other issues to give it a chance, it seemed like it could've a great way to accelerate finding your feet in a new country/city

The "dorm for adults" concept has been tried like 100 times by different startups and companies, always flops.

This 110%. It's especially obvious after moving out of the US and it's hard to convey how much better cities built for humans are than cities built for cars than by experiencing it for yourself.

Yea so great, until you are struck by a pandemic and your minimalist home is basically now a prison cell where you can't do much because everything there is to do was outside your tiny home.

Now I know people shitting on suburbs is the fashion, but the fact is if you are the kind of person who has hobbies that don't involve going out and socializing a bedroom community is perfect. You get your own land and a detached home with plenty of space to do mostly whatever you want. Woodwork, swimming in a pool, running around with your dog, playing loud music and movies, hosting dinner parties, whatever. It's so much more comfortable for people who don't have urges to just "hang out".

Why not both? Seriously though, suburbs would be a lot nicer if they were built on a human scale with amenities within walking distance rather than a sea of house bounded by freeways. You just need mixed zoning really, model it after a small town with fully detached housing surrounding a small core of low density apartments and shops. Rinse and repeat, call it a decentralized city or some such, maybe it'll catch on and get some planner's attention.

This.

I love in a sea of houses. Bu where I live I can take 30 minute walk to the doctor, or ironically, the gas station.

I think for that to work you need a strong public transport system (regular daily, frequent enough and comprehensive) as well as having multi-purpose buildings so that companies are mixed in housing, as well as green places and areas for people to meet, sit chat and go shopping.

Doctors, dentists, hairdressers, cafes, bakeries and flower shops all fit nicely with housing.

Two of the central themes drawing people to suburbs are space and privacy. I agree that more mixed use spaces in suburbs would be nice, but fundamentally I don't think you are going to do away with cars in most suburban environments because I don't you can achieve the business density necessary to do so without sacrificing lot size and privacy.

I don't think you should do away with cars, we need them for efficient transport and whenever we need to travel longer distances. I just think we should build with both cars and people in mind. Most North American suburbs are focused solely on cars and houses with no provision for mixed use. I think the zoning is more to blame than cars for the current dire conditions.

The Netherlands does this really well.

This sounds like how many places in the Netherlands are. A small town (1000-75000) often with an ancient core (ours dates back to 1300) with the church repurposed as a microbrewery, shops and apartments. Then around that core, ever more recently built houses with yards and a more affordable €/m2 price the further you move out. It puts bars, sports, parks, restaurants, groceries in walking and biking distance, often with bigger cities nearby for theatres, university, or more niche shopping, accessible via public transportation or cars in ~30min.

I live in the burbs with some amenities being walking distance. People are still very isolated and segregated. I'm not sure it can be fixed except to allow easy access through public transportation to more dense, walkable areas. Strong driving culture as well. Save for a few strip malls on main drags, suburbia is a big box dystopia. Anyway yes zoning is probably the most important thing, though people are out here for the (comparatively) larger lots and houses.

> your minimalist home is basically now a prison cell

Went home for Christmas and as part of it swung by the nursing home where my Grandma lives.

She is basically in actual prison for the past nine months. For a good part of it she was confined to her room. It appears that they've relaxed the restrictions after Coronavirus ripped through the place and everyone that didn't die is now immune. She is at least allowed to go sit in the lobby area now and talk with the other residents.

Nothing quite like watching a 98 year old woman break down in tears every time someone reminds her that she can't actually come outside and give us a hug or talk to us in person.

> everyone that didn't die is now immune

How do they know?

If they've recovered, they're immune. If you weren't immune, you couldn't recover - it's the same system.

The only question is how long-lasting it is, and so far the answer is "indefinite / a long time".

But if they suddenly start dying

“Huh well that was interesting”

so honestly theyll say whatever is convenient. nobody knows anything, nobody has any plan, we’ll see

Other people have caught it and recovered, but it was not known whether that gave them immunity. What's different here? In fact, some people have caught it twice, so you can obviously recover without gaining immunity.

Why not break her out I have an 85 year old grandma living with me an its fine...

She has moderate dementia, which means you can't really trust her to do reasonable things if left to her own devices.

Who said anything about minimalist or tiny homes? There's a wide middle ground between a 25 square meter shoebox apartment and a grotesque 230 square meter "family" home.

230 m^2 isn’t uncommon in the US, and there’s plenty that are double. We do have “basements” that sometimes are finished and can be counted against the size, but are generally used to much larger homes than elsewhere.

Specifically in 2019 the average single family home was 2611 sq ft, apartments 1156 sq ft, acc’d to

https://themreport.com/daily-dose/09-02-2020/as-more-stay-ho...

weeps in dense high cost of living area

I respectfully request to cease comments of the type of "weeps in x". You don't have to honor this request, but I would feel better without reading these.

The brevity is pretty unique but lets see what would be conveyed by honoring that wish

Translation: "As someone that lives in desirable parts of high cost of living areas, even the largest premium units are below the average square footage mentioned in that article, I generally try not to think about it but it is fascinating to see, I think I can relate to other people that earn enough to comfortably live in these areas, but it is not common to ever talk about being financially stable in an expensive area, lets go back to pretending that we are all struggling and 'got a good deal' on our 900 sq ft penthouse."

I question their numbers. How many bedrooms are in that 1156-square-foot apartment? At least three? I've lived in several two-bedroom apartments throughout my life in areas with a relatively low cost of living, and they ranged from about 650 to about 900 square feet in area. The latter felt unnecessarily spacious.

So either the source claims that the average apartment has three or more bedrooms (and this is false, very few 3BR+ apartments are built in most buildings), or that the average apartment offers palatial luxury. Maybe they miscalculated?

This is why nothing is walking distance

That's an absurd size for a home.

Thank you for speaking up. You're responding to a comment that angrily assumes some unspoken characteristics about "cities built for humans, and not for cars."

I am a reluctant, but accomplished touring cyclist, and I've ridden hundreds of miles through American landscape that is positively hostile to pedestrians and vehicles operating at less-than-car scales. The assumption of cars has led urban designers to implement travel distances that are only grueling to traverse, and the interstitial spaces are inhospitable, bedecked with exhaust ports, bad lighting, narrow spaces or vast, entirely unfurnished without shade, let alone water or public facilities for miles, even, in larger towns. Sometimes, just crossing the street to go a kilometer I've found the American cityscape impassable without hopping in the car, and popping over a minimum of one (1) freeway exit.

That's just one aspect of the alien dimensions to which our environment's built.

I visited a University in America having lived outside America for 5 years. I walked from the University to the theater 2km away to see a movie. It felt like I was going to die even with a sidewalk next to the high way.

Similar story. The old Apple Maps icon was where the N De Anza Boulevard crossed over the Junipero Serra Freeway. Center of the old icon [0] was One Infinite Loop, top left of the icon was the Cupertino Hotel.

Going from the Cupertino Hotel to One Infinite Loop on foot felt like I was risking life and limb, despite it having pedestrian lights [1].

[0] http://thetrendler.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Maps-Icons...

[1] https://goo.gl/maps/ZMBq8RzpZLc6xwM97

Visiting Plano, Texas (which I really enjoyed) - our hotel was just over the road from the business we were visiting.

That road was a 3-lanes-each-way road with no pedestrian crossing points. We just had to run across when there was a gap. It wasn't a fast road - there were plenty of traffic lights for traffic purposes - but still, nothing for pedestrians.

"230 square meters" is about the size of the average new home being built in the US.

Yes.

How many pandemics have we had in our lifetime ?

This is like saying buy a Hummer for that one off road drive you take in a decade and suffer its drawbacks for 99% of your use case.

Have vast sprawling houses protected US from COVID-19 ?

Let's make data driven decisions please.

Someone needs to read The Black Swan, quick.

The problem of relying too much on "data-driven decisions" is that it leads to absurd optimizations that make the overall system more fragile.

We had only one pandemic in our lifetime, yet. But don't forget about Avian Flu and Swine Flu also happened and caused concern less than 10 years ago. The world is way more connected and we never had so many people being able to go across the world spreading a virus in less than 24h. The likelihood of another pandemic threat is increasing with time, not decreasing.

If anything, one of the lessons that I hope we take from this year is that we need to think our environments (on all scales, from the bedrooms in our homes to our cities and schools for our kids and the city altogether) for robustness and longevity, not for cost, practicality or marketability.

From europe, this rings very true.

I wanted to get a larger house with a garden before the pandemic (which is ridiculously expensive given the rent / value ratio in Europe is a joke) and the pandemics reinforced that tenfolds.

How long before the government lock us in our tiny homes again?

Who said anything about a minimalist home? While a little smaller, our place has a much better build quality than our "stick built" suburban US home (that we still own and rent out - and it requires wayyyy more maintenance). It overlooks a large park (that contains walking paths, statues, water features, skateboard park, various sports courts, outdoor exercise park and even a climbing wall. Additionally, we have a view of the bay and mountains.

Within 5-10 min walking distance we have all daily activity requirements like grocery stores, gyms, pharmacies, restaurants, bars, schools, large year-round indoor swimming pool that blows away any private pool that I've seen, etc. If I did want a car we have underground parking or I could buy a private garage in a self-storage warehouse type area nearby for parking it or using as a hobby workshop. The one thing I do miss is being able to crank up my electric guitar, still looking for a solution to that one. Maybe a music space that rents by the hour or something.

I don't miss the car centric lifestyle for a second, and I'm saying this as an amateur race car driver. With all the time I used to spend driving around for the most basic of activities, I now have much more time available for my family, hobbies, side projects or even the occasional nap. You can't buy this quality of life anywhere in the US at any price or income level.

It looks like other people have got the message.

https://eurocities.eu/stories/reclaiming-the-streets/

and an article in the Guardian about Barcelona https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/may/17/superblocks-r...

I'm personally heartened by people's moves to de-focus the car in urban places.

I blame ubiquitous access to cars and phones as significant early contributors to this problem, with modern IMs and social media being the final nail in the coffin. Because together, these technologies enable your social network to be mostly independent of location. Nowadays, when you move to a different neighbourhood or a different town, you'll still be in daily contact with your friends and family from the previous location, and (if they're relatively close by car) you'll also hang out with them regularly. So you have no reason to try and meet new people at the place you now live in, because you still have your old social network! Hell, new friends will be competing for attention with your old friends - where just few decades ago, these old friendships would go to "hibernation mode" by virtue of distance.

Internet communication, with its much richer modes of communication, is essentially social junk food. It's not a real substitute for meatspace interactions, but it satiates the hunger for socialization. Thus people feel ever more connected and ever more lonely at the same time - loneliness being social malnourishment.

This... still exists? It's called the Elks, the Kiwanis, the Odd Fellows, the Jaycees, the Rotary Club, the Knights of Pythias, the Freemasons, and some organizations based on blood or military service, like the American Legion or the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Even here in the Bay Area I live just a couple blocks down from a huge and well-appointed Elks lodge, and just a few miles away in downtown Mountain View, there is an Eagles lodge across the street from an Odd Fellows, itself a block away from a Freemason lodge.

I think they exist, but they don't appeal to younger people. All of the groups you mention that I'm familiar with I associate with people's grandfathers, or at youngest their slightly odd uncles. Also only with men, although maybe that's a bit of selection bias on the ones I know.

If something exists but people aren't using it, it isn't the right solution. It might be hard to say why it isn't, it could even just be a marketing problem, but nevertheless the problem isn't solved by its existence.

They seem to appeal just fine in the Bay Area. In fact, I'd say that the main sources of social hookups and favor-trading around here are (a) churches and (b) fraternal orgs... possibly distantly followed by college alumni groups and actual college fraternities.

I think just talking to an Apple dad about his life and priorities would be extremely eye-opening for a lot of people on HN.

What is an Apple dad?

A male human who works at Apple and has reproduced at least once.

I... have never been aware of anyone in the Bay Area going to either a church or a fraternal org. But I guess it depends on what circles you run in.

I would say that about 40% of my engineer peers belong to a church, but my circle tends to be pretty Korean/Asian. Church attendance is pretty ubiquitous around here. Larry Wall goes to a local church.

Weird that our experiences are so different. Do you mean Korean/Asian immigrants, or Asian-American?

> I think they exist, but they don't appeal to younger people.

I live in the mid-west, where these organizations were very common. I'm ~50 years old, and I don't know ANYONE who's in one of them, and every one of them around the area that I drive by is in disrepair. I expect them to disappear with the boomer generation.

Another feature of my location are all the small "mainline" churches (Presbyterian, Methodist, et. al.), who hover around 30-50 people, and have no members younger than 60. There's a business opportunity coming to buy up a lot of prime real estate when these churches fold in another 10 years.

I think a huge problem with finding "community" now is the utter isolation caused by social media and access to the thinnest slice of the news you want to tolerate. It has created a culture where people are only tolerant to their SPECIFIC view of the world, and it's just really hard to find people who think EXACTLY like you.

For those that live around Tampa, they can always join a Pirate Krewe https://interkrewe.com/ They started out of the Gasparilla Festival http://gasparillapiratefest.com/ but have become more like the Rotary club or the JC's. They tend to attract members from mid 20's on up.

I think they exist, but they don't appeal to younger people.

I actually tried to join a couple of those sorts of organizations, and I found them all very off-putting. Between the weird elitism, the arbitrary and time consuming hurdles for membership and the feeling that everybody there felt 20+ years older than me (even when they probably weren't) didn't make it seem like a good time.

I like the concept though, I just wish there was one that felt more up to date and actually felt like a sort of thing I'd want to join.

> I think they exist, but they don't appeal to younger people.

For the tech and maker types, a hackerspace/makerspace might be more appropriate.

The underground pool at the SF Elks is lovely.

Interesting, are you a member of either. I moved to the Bay Area a couple years back. Would love to join one of these organizations.

I was an active Rotarian for a while, but have scaled back my commitments this year.

Can you please tell me about your experience?

>Freemasons

So, basically people just wanted to hang out but now everyone thinks they want to take over the world.

While here in the Midwest, their golf clubs, parks and buildings are being sold off to the public for lack of membership.

Part of the problem is many are invitation-only clubs. That kept them mono-culture and full of the 'right people'. And the current members have at some time quit inviting? Don't know why.

You aren't more isolated living in a suburban house than in an inner city apartment. Isolation mostly has to do with your desire/initiative/ability to engage in social activities.

Depends. Inner city may offer quicker/easier access to favored activities. When I had a car, I found that a ten-mile drive in from the burbs (and back) can become a barrier. Mass transit, much moreso.

Socializing, there can be a substantial difference between interaction and meaningful interaction. Both can require time away from favored/necessary activities; both can have multiple consequences (desirable or not). A perceived need for constant contact may be unhealthy.

Tech is a crappy substitute for the real thing (as E. M. Forster famously noted), so has some destructive potential.

I don't know about that. I've observed that co-workers who live in the exurbs are virtually never seen at social functions.

There are many reasons for that:

- They miss their kids

- They prefer friends and activities much closer to where they live

- Transit home gets far more complicated the later it gets, particularly when alcohol is involved

I think the complications getting transit home is a major cause of point two there. Co-workers that have to catch trains out to commuter towns always needed to be mindful of the time, and may have needed to drive the final part of their journey.

Big contrast to being able to catch an underground/subway within a few minutes with no planning, and fall back to a relatively affordable Uber if you get carried away and miss the last one

People often live in the suburbs because: - They have kids and need a bigger house - They got tired of all the crappy city social life

Plus, most work related social functions are quite cringey.

Just give me my pay-check. I'll skip the booze and small talk with coworkers I should be friend with so I have less excuses to quit.

In short: "Yeah, I'm isolated, but I chose to be"?

The higher barrier will isolate a person more. Whatever initiative a person has encounters higher barriers, with the net effect more isolation in aggregate.

Advertising basically works this way. Nudges demonstrably work at a population level without anyone feeling coerced. In aggregate, for the population as a whole, it likely makes a statistical difference, even though no one in particular feels like it makes a deciding factor. Like, say, with organ donation. Make opt in default, an enrollment goes up.

Unless some other factor associated with suburban living cancels the effect, it seems extremely unlikely that it does not make a difference, even if every individual feels like "the only thing that dictates it is my desire/initiative/ability".

Plenty of people are isolated here in Tokyo, where the city is easily walkable, and you naturally bump into countless numbers of people everyday.

I agree though that it's annoying that going out = spending a lot of money.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com