Amen. I'm a huge fan of small living...but that can be accomplished in apartments and condos. In fact, I'd argue that one can't really live small unless one has abundant resources within walking distance. My favorite home was a 500 sq. ft. studio apartment that was so well designed I never felt cramped. But, in part, that worked so well because it was downtown, near about 30 restaurants, shopping, etc. I like the small houses, but I've determined I can get more bang for my small living buck in a high-density environment.

Not for nothing did Daimler have to create Car2Go as a means of getting its Smart Cars out on the road. Nobody was buying them then, nobody is buying them now, but they are great to use nonetheless.

Maybe the model of urban householding, like the model of urban car use, is making the shift to renting rather than owning. It certainly has for me.

Forgive me if a call for "aggressive social engineering" coming from a Marxist fills me with dread. I think it's the right reaction given the history of such things.

yes, but a 150 sq ft apartment does not make a "home".

"lots of small homes will probably increase rather than reduce energy inefficiency"

Why would you think that? For one thing, building codes are much tighter than they were forty years ago, and multi-family housing tends to be inherently more efficient, because you have individual climate controls in each unit. Lots of people in apartments and condos find they don't necessarily need to run the heat in the wintertime, because they have heated apartments on either side of them.

Plus, at Timothy points out, if the housing is near services, that means the residents are less dependent on cars.

I've been researching small houses and have found the new wave of prefab micro-houses really underwhelming.

For one thing the idea is not new at all. The marketing speak attempts to make a distinction, but these are just manufactured homes. The double-wide is the original modular.

However, the newer models do have fancier features and better interior surfaces. This increases the delivery costs to the point where the cost per square foot is much higher than traditional building.

It's like getting all the drawbacks of a manufactured home without the benefit of saving money over traditional construction.

@6 Multi-family housing is more efficient, but what Nomad is selling is single-family housing.

Please do a careful study of Amsterdam for both small houses and Smart cars. Works really well for them, but they have very different social values....

Marketplace tells the story of a successful young Chinese artist who got around government air pollution regs that restrict driving based on license-plate numbers by simply buying five cars, one for each day of the week.

For the life of me, I do not understand The Stranger's utopian obsession with wanting everybody to live in shoeboxes and ride bicycles everywhere.

Their ideal world would be like something out of a dystopian Terry Gilliam movie.

(Although big-money real estate developers would love it.)

I sure wish the Stranger staff would all move into micro-housing before pushing it on everyone else.

Micro-housing can help but you're not going to get everyone (hell not even a large portion of the population) to adjust their lifestyles that significantly without having a gun held to their head.

For the life of me, I do not understand The CPS's utopian obsession with wanting everybody to live in suburban McMansions and drive single-occupant cars everywhere.

That ideal world would be like something out of a dystopian Terry Gilliam movie.

(Although big-money real estate developers would love it.)

Charles, if you really want "aggressive social engineering" then you ought to be arguing for Civic Dormitories.
Yup.
That's what we need. Civic Dormitories.

With bunk beds. Nothing industrial-scaled. Maybe just 10 bunk beds in a room. Separate spaces for children. Obviously lots of issues to be worked out such as maybe special "baby-making rooms" where male-female couples can apply to spend time.

Even a private 150 SF apartment is lavish and obviously just a trick by capitalists to drum up demand for consumer goods.

All that people really need is to be in tune with The People and that doesn't require consumer goods like two pairs of shoes.

Right Charles?

The problem with so many Green ideas is they're so reactionary. Just because you hate McMansions doesn't mean the right answer is 150 square foot homes. Just because the average American family owns 2 cars that get driven 15,000 miles per year doesn't mean that being 100% car free is a viable alternative. Just because Americans eat way too much meat doesn't mean that we should all switch to strict veganism.

We don't need McMansions, and we don't need 'micro-houses'. We just need houses, modestly sized, well build, and located in dense, walkable urban villages. What on earth is wrong with housing that is sized for around 250 square feet per resident? That's pretty damn modest yet very livable if you have a good design pattern.

As for social engineering, we're already living it. Seattle's got tons of zoning laws that make efficient housing illegal, whose only purpose is to keep housing prices high.

@15 I believe that's how they live in Shenzhen. The iPhone manufacturers are stealing our dream!

@16 you mean pre-mid century 900 foot bungalows that a family of three can comfortably live in and possibly afford? You capitalist pig!! Get back to your aPodment who is sponsoring several ads in The Stranger this week!!!

And until we get Civic Dormitories, we can solve the homeless problem overnight -- literally -- if the City would simply send homeless people to any home with an empty bedroom.

Just suppose that you have an two bedroom house (whether you rent or buy) and you are just one person. BAD! That is excessive use of resources.The City should send one homeless person (and just one) to your house to live; you already have an empty bedroom. What's the harm? And lots of social good.

Problem solved! Your empty bedroom helps solves the homeless problem.

It's interesting how much schemes like this rely on imagery of these dwellings sitting in pristine surrounding—hilltops, scenic shores, tropical islands—as though their owners could have them helicoptered around to different sites in national parks and wilderness areas.

Maybe they would most efficiently be clustered in the underutilized margins of Wal-Mart parking lots.

Or stacked like the units in Habitat 67 (which I actually quite like).

This micro home, and others, are not intended to replace all housing, but to provide an option. It will work for some, and not others, and in some places but certainly not everywhere. Let's not make this a hard-edged "yes-no" "black-white" "up-down" issue, but consider the underlying idea: Doing more, with less, more efficiently, with less impact. Some will want the independence a micro home affords while others will enjoy the interdependence of community.

Because we all know the glorious future will involve everyone living in Khrushchyovka style houses (wiki them) with the lights off, heat off, eating organically grown celery.

Until you can provide an image of sustainability is not inherently unpleasant, your ideas will go nowhere.

@20 - After the economic revolution and poverty driven take back, these units will be scattered throughout the backyards and golf course fairways of exclusive McMansion enclaves while the massive energy sucking "homes" of the ejected will be turned into multi-family dwellings and schools and clinics..... and maybe scattered in parking lots, too!

PS - I toured Habitat 67 when it opened: Very cool.

I would like to add one to the list Windermere - Listing Detail - 4611 NE 75th St Seattle, WA http://www.windermere.com/listing/201147…

Here's what we really need...$1000 homes from IKEA:

http://inhabitat.com/ikeas-solar-powered…

Albeit these are designed for refugees!

@12: "Micro-housing can help but you're not going to get everyone (hell not even a large portion of the population) to adjust their lifestyles that significantly without having a gun held to their head."

The thing is, most folks already have a gun to their head, they just don't realize that they're the ones holding it. The cost, financial and time wise for car-based living, coupled with the belief that a single-family house with a yard and 500 square feet per inhabitant is necessary is a horrible drain on increasingly stagnant and insufficient wages.

Micro or not, multi-family housing calls for less complexity than single family housing so it is probably the better developmental choice for a high priced energy world. Yet, we haven't really tapped into alternative energy potentials and energy conservation does work wonders, so single family housing may be sustainable where land is readily available.

@26
You really think that if "most folks" actually knew what you know, then "most folks" would....do what?

@27

You state "...multi-family housing calls for less complexity than single family housing..."

In what way? I have built both and multi-family is much MORE complicated...many more issues. So I am curious at your statement.

@28: I think the first step towards changing any less-than-desirable situation is...understanding how un-desirable it is. The second step is recognizing alternatives.

But, for the most part, I suspect that only the young, who haven't yet had time and lack the funds to settle into large single-family homes will be able to actually make a choice to embrace a smaller-living space, non car-dependent lifestyle. Us older folks have already made too many choices that lock us into staying in the standalone house barring economic disaster. But, every all the century old bungalows that get torn down in my neighborhood to be replaced by more efficient boxes within a block of a bus line gives me hope.

@7,

Modulars have been around a hell of a lot longer than double-wides. Sears was selling them through the mail more than a century ago.

@23: Golf courses tend to have good drainage and built-in water distribution systems. Pocket gardens for all… once the heavy loads of weedkiller and insecticide leach away!

@29 - The knowledge and technology needed to build multi-family housing may be more complicated but the systems (energetic, transport,..) needed to support a more dispersed organizational structure are usually more complex.

Condos and Townhomes tend to be more energy efficient

@33
Interesting theory though I would challenge whether you have any specific facts or examples.

@33

And furthermore, you are changing the context from "...multi-family housing to single family housing..." to (I gather) dense center city to sprawling suburb.

As with Goldy and his City Council photos, your theory is interesting but needs work and refinement to be persuasive. So far all you have is an assertion supporting yet another assertion.