Getting Really Small

As public housing units reach the end of their useful life in New York City and as gentrification now reaches up well-past 125^th Street and even making inroads into the South Bronx… and with Brooklyn well into “very pricey,” Queens into “getting there,” and Manhattan just plain prohibitive, there is a very real question of where entry-level and service workers at the lower levels are expected to live. And that’s assuming they even have a job. Cities like New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. are increasingly unaffordable to those without significant incomes. Young college grads often stack themselves into tiny apartments (the size of their college dorm rooms) like sardines in the hopes of being able to make enough career headway to justify a more human existence.

In NYC, where rent control sill creates some strange anomalies, an average studio apartment rents for $2,000/month, and moving up to a one bedroom can add $700 to that average sum. And that’s just average. If you want something closer to work and you happen to be in mid-town or downtown, you can figure on adding a few bucks to that total. By virtue of a 1987 law, a NYC apartment has to be at least 400 square feet, pretty small by anyone’s measurements, but there is talk of downsizing this requirement to enable people to survive in this outrageously expensive U.S. city.

At least in Manhattan, there are an awful lot of one or two-person households, so maybe micro-apartments can be justified. “Manhattan is the U.S. capital of solo living, with 46.3 percent of households consisting of one person, according to the 2010 census. City officials estimate that 76 percent of residents on the island live alone or with one other person – and such households are growing faster around the city than any other type of living situation. Officials attribute the trend in part to young professionals delaying both marriage and childbearing… Around the country, more people are living alone than ever before. The solo living rate rose to almost 27 percent in 2010, according to the census.

“In New York City, where long working hours can leave little time for home life, renters often sacrifice square footage to save money. The size of city apartments has been lampooned on television, with at least one sitcom showing characters living – literally – in a closet. Some New Yorkers, desperate for storage space and uninterested in the finer points of homemaking, turn their ovens into storage for clothes or other items.” Huffington Post, July 9^th.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg is proposing a new micro-apartment limit. The old world tenements are larger than the proposed 300 square foot new minimum (think 12’ x 25’), but there would be a requirement that these would be rented only to one and two-person households. San Francisco is considering going down to 150 square feet – sort of! “The new minimum would be 150 square feet plus kitchen, bathroom and closet - 220 square feet in total, about the size of a one-car garage. The current minimum with all rooms included is 290 square feet… The ultra-efficient efficiencies will go for $1,300 to $1,500 a month… Per city regulations, 15 percent of the units will be allocated as below market rate for low-income residents; … those would rent for around $900 a month… The current average rent for a San Francisco studio apartment is $2,075 a month, according to real estate service RealFacts.” San Francisco Chronicle, July 13^th. Do you have to back out to turn around?

FEMA trailers (pictured above) were often 300 square feet and frequently housed families of four or more. Still, there is just something sad about crowding in an impaired economy and the impact of housing that even necessitates such considerations. America may just be a story of downsizing for almost everyone, one way or another.

I’m Peter Dekom, and small is the new big?