41–50 of 69 posts
I turned down an internship in Palo Alto because the least expensive temporary (< 12 mo) housing I could find in the Bay area was a bunk in a "hacker shack" for ~$1k/month. The mortgage on my 4/2 house in Mississippi was <$500/mo. The person who offered me the job laughed when I told her about the wild discrepancy in costs of living and said several potential interns and employees over the years backed out for the sa…
What once was old is new again. The fad we call "co-living" today has been common for most of the nation's history. You can even see examples of it in old movies, books, and TV shows. But now that it's got SVVC money behind it, it's somehow shiny and new. Although the "pod" angle seems new, it's not. Though, it was almost exclusively for the very very poor in the past.
A key difference: I don't think it was as common to be "co-living" with complete strangers (though maybe I'm wrong on that). Sharing a room with someone you're pretty familiar with is a much different experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A private bed and storage space in lower Manhattan for say, $400 a month It would likely be similarly priced to the article, i.e. closer to $1200/month. I think that's the real downside of things like this: They're offering a pretty steep discount compared to what it would cost to, say, rent a studio in lower manhattan, but not a steep enough discount that it would be affordable for someone making minimum wage. It…
Judging from the image in the article, the space isn't very well-designed. Something like Japanese pod hotels are far more space efficient and would probably let you fit 10 pods in the space of two bunkbeds.
Sure, easy to skirt around if you're just an individual landlord, much less so if you're a company openly advertising it.
What once was old is new again. The fad we call "co-living" today has been common for most of the nation's history. You can even see examples of it in old movies, books, and TV shows. But now that it's got SVVC money behind it, it's somehow shiny and new. Although the "pod" angle seems new, it's not. Though, it was almost exclusively for the very very poor in the past.
> What once was old is new again. Does this also mean it is a "step down"? Because it looks like it is. Aren't we supposed to be better off than we used to - with all the efficiencies of market economy and technological progress that is...
Why is living with other human beings considered a "step down"? Most people in this so called "modern" age are horribly lonely.
The concept is not exactly new; it's basically a hostel. Maybe it was less common in North America until now?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A key difference: I don't think it was as common to be "co-living" with complete strangers (though maybe I'm wrong on that). Sharing a room with someone you're pretty familiar with is a much different experience.
I think that "co-living" spaces like this were common for factory worker-types around the industrial revolution, where you were with strangers rather than roommates, but my only source is that I vaguely remember hearing it on some podcast so take it with a grain of salt.
I meant more that I don't think that type of situation was common throughout history, more-so just for that time period for a certain group of people.
My impression is more that while families and groups of families might have cohabitated for long periods of time, it was a bit more rare for complete strangers to do so.
I couldn't help but think that it's a system that encourages "young workaholics without any outside life (especially no families) need apply" kinda setup.
The concept is not exactly new; it's basically a hostel. Maybe it was less common in North America until now?
You can make a reservation online for a single night for $40-$50. So yes it is a hostel. Same caveats as every hostel apply : reduced privacy, snoring, you can end up with indelicate people and you have to watch out for theft.
I went to a hostel that opened recently in France that looked very similar (no TV in the beds but a curtain you can close). In fact they also called the beds 'pods'. The difference is that it only cost 18€ a night.