For a while now, I’ve been thinking about collective living arrangements specifically geared toward communities like hackers. I'm a member of the Hacker Dojo in Mountain View and its just awesome to hang out with creative people with whom I have a lot in common.
Technology and creative thinking can both increase shared housing's quality and affordability, even in expensive cities.
One thing that could be done with a large space is repurpose most of it for business tenants during the day. And for tenants themselves who might like to have space to work during the day very close to where they live.
This might be accomplished using moving walls that enable you to compress bedrooms like Gary Chang does in his apartment:
http://unclutterer.com/2010/04/26/video-incredibly-efficient...
There would also locked storage in kitchen and bathroom and systems and personnel to encourage and maintain cleanliness.
The idea is to reduce the costs of things when you aren’t using them, but still maintain privacy and security. Tenants could also share many things they don’t use often, like tools, thus reducing the amount of storage space each person needs.
There would be a system that rents the space out during the day and you would pay a fixed price that covers your compressed room 24/7 and uncompressed for, say, 8pm – 8am weekdays or whatever suits you. Then the remaining space would be leased, with some auctioned off real time so that you can always stay home when you’re sick. And you'd pay less when you're on vacation.
Overall, the purpose is to give young, single people the opportunity to live in a clean, secure, supportive situation at a great price even in a high cost area.