Boardinghouses: where the city was born | Hacker News Reader

Boardinghouses: where the city was born

bostonglobe.com

84 pointspg19 comments

When I studied abroad in Freiburg, Germany 3 years ago I lived in something that was fairly similar to a boardinghouse. It was all college students but we were attending a variety of universities in the town. We each had a private bedroom/bathroom (with heated floors no less!) but there were 3 shared kitchens - one on each floor.

Info about where I lived: http://www.goethe.de/ins/de/ort/fre/unt/enindex.htm

I wasn't doing startups at that point but I was was obsessed with technology and the internet. Upon arrival I was a bit disappointed to learn that wifi was only available in the common dining hall areas.

This actually ended up being the most beneficial "feature" of our living situation because instead of closing our doors and surfing the web in our private rooms we were constantly out in the common rooms where all sorts of serendipitous moments occurred. Some of my best memories from my study abroad started because I had been sitting in the common room/dining hall on my computer before getting hooked into going on some adventure downtown.

I would LOVE to live in a situation like that again. I feel it would be amazing to set up something in the style of a boardinghouse in Austin, TX (where I'm moving in March).

The boardinghouse-esque nature of college dormitories was one of the best aspects of undergrad. That's about the extent to which many of us can relate to the notion, but it does indeed seem to be powerful.

SF in particular seems to be reviving the general concept of the boarding house[1]. It's interesting to think about the extent to which this trend might be related to high rents.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Tech-entrepreneurs-rev...

I lived in a big communal house for over a year, it's great and I'd recommend it to anyone. You get less distraction looking after things as there are scale advantages (eg only one person manages the cleaner), you share meals, you meet more new people and you get more stimulated with new ideas spread from conversation and peoples friends.

Campus is a startup doing interesting things related to communal living and groups housing. http://buildcampus.com

I had a chance to meet the founder. They're targeted to the younger crowd. Recent grads moving from dorm life to city life with nothing in between.

I think I you can get some of the benefits of "group living" from having roommates. I was fortunate enough to land in two great roommate situations in my early and mid 20s. I suppose a startup jumping into a fragmented market makes sense.

Yeah, I lease out three rooms in our house to roommates and it feels a lot like a boarding-house style setup. It depends quite how it's organized, of course.

I lived in the Bronx for a couple of years in a boarding house which is part of the Kolping Society founded by a Catholic priest intending to provide a home-away-from-home for young workers in the cities of industrial Germany. There's also a Quaker house near Union Square that is over a hundred years old.

http://www.kolpingresidence.com/ http://www.penington.org/

Really brings to the fore the dynamics that have led to AirBnB's success despite our society's focus on single-serve autonomy.

I briefly looked for co-ops when I moved across the country to a city where I didn't know anyone after college. They were popular at my school, so they had to exist in some form in the real world, right? But I found nothing. It would be interesting to see a return to the formation of communities like this as people become more physically/emotionally isolated by technology.

Well, at least where I am (Ann Arbor), the student co-ops also allow nonstudents, though they need to be approved by the house. But I agree; it's disappointing that cooperative housing should be so largely restricted to students. And having to be approved by the house is a substantial barrier when you don't know anyone. (And of course if you let in a large number of nonstudents, they cease to be student co-ops, contrary to what they're supposed to be. Which is again why it would be nice if more co-ops existed that weren't supposed to be primarily for students.)

Ann Arbor is where I went to school! While I was there I had a living situation like a co-op (8 of us living in a large house with a few rooms occupied by random student and non-student subleasers who would come and go every few months), and transitioning from that to living alone in another state has been jarring. I am reclusive to a fault and probably wouldn't have made it through college if I didn't have the friends I made in that house. I'd love to see more non-student co-ops/boarding houses.

Hostels.

Yes, I'm surprised the article didn't mention them. Certainly the brand-name hostels are closer to hotels than boarding houses but some of the independent hostels with long-term residents are really just boarding houses with a different name.

I stayed at a hostel in Istanbul that seemed to be staffed by long term residents. There was the guy who owned it, and then most of the "staff" were just various internationals (Polish girl, Egyptian guy, a Syrian, etc) who were staying there for a few months. Very cool place. Not sure how common this setup is.

I've stayed at some hostels in Toronto and most of the staff were travellers. Still the experience is not exactly like a boardinghouse because most guests are there short-term.

Having just stayed in a hostel not more than 2 days ago, it really felt like a community in the common areas. I really like the idea of long term residents in a hostel, but only if that hostel only takes on that kind of traveller. This effectively makes it a boarding house, of course.

Boardinghouses remind me of Danish cohousing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhEHS4plCx0)

The modern extension is urban gypsying; inflatable air mattress and a laptop.

Also, for the adventurous: vehicle life (van, bus, boat, plane, etc) &| squatting.

That is until some folks that choose to have kids.

"by Ruth Graham". Is there a relation?

Not that I know of.

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