Existing small houses are priced as high (or higher) than new-build McMansions.
See also: "missing middle"
Then you're just contributing to the sprawl problem, because infrastructure has to extend to you somehow.
The options are:
- bring all the infrastructure with you (be rich)
- do without (live in squalor)
The third option we need:
- small dense affordable housing
Yes, we're in agreement that density is sorely missing, due to effectively being made illegal - whether SROs, lot size requirements, building codes prohibiting new triple deckers, etc.
I just don't know why your first comment had this:
> The only alternative is to buy rural land and try to get creative with the law (e.g. your tiny home on an existing rusted old trailer frame is considered a "remodel", etc) or simply build a small cabin and hope no one from the government comes to bulldoze it.
Because that isn't an alternative. Rather it just strikes me as regular rural living in a small house.
I'm surprised there haven't been more private corporate attempts to take ruralish land and bootstrap higher density walkable proto-cities with bus (or even train) service to a larger city, especially with the recent trend of remote work making attracting industry less necessary.
It was more of a suggestion to do something quasi-legal like a multi-tenant tiny house village. I know a few folks who did this in the PNW, along with one who bought a disused kids' camp facility with small A-frame cabins and turned it into a permaculture farm & community, and then had all their friends move in.
You're right in that it's not an answer either, because it's essentially a tiny breakaway society.
Or is it just perfectly comfortable and what non US housing should strive for, instead of the cramped quarters that are available elsewhere? (hint: yes, it is) (And of course, there is comfortable housing available everywhere, and cramped housing available in the US, but OP mentioned US specifically, so I specifically used it in my answer.)
In terms of housing affordability, the dominance of mcmansions with small yards (but big enough for a swimming pool in the back) and large houses certainly reduces supply for first home buyers.
And, cities suffer because supplying utilities (light, gas, water, roads, trash, sewer, etc) all cost more because of the large horizontal footprint.
Height restrictions, floor area ratio, lot coverage, setbacks, parking minimums, square footage minimums, lot size minimums, and lots of other zone requirements all contribute to a floor on the price of housing.
There are plenty of really good requirements like firebreaks and egress points, but not everything should to be enforced by zoning. Many of these things should be allowed to be controlled by the market. If people truly want 2 car garages and 1/2 acre lots they can pay for it. Making it the legal minimum to construct massively distorts the market.
Zoning massively benefits the existing occupants of a location and when there is a housing crisis just makes matters so much worse.