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Dorms For Grownups: a Solution For Lonely Millennials?
HughPickens.com writes: Alana Semuels writes in The Atlantic that Millennials want the chance to be alone in their own bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, but they also want to be social and never lonely.That's why real estate developer Troy Evans is starting construction on a new space in Syracuse called Commonspace that he envisions as a dorm for Millennials. It will feature 21 microunits, each packed with a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living space into 300-square-feet. The microunits surround shared common areas including a chef's kitchen, a game room, and a TV room. "We're trying to combine an affordable apartment with this community style of living, rather than living by yourself in a one-bedroom in the suburbs," says Evans. The apartments will be fully furnished to appeal to potential residents who don't own much (the units will have very limited storage space). The bedrooms are built into the big windows of the office building—one window per unit—and the rest of the apartment can be traversed in three big leaps. The units will cost between $700 and $900 a month. "If your normal rent is $1,500, we're coming in way under that," says John Talarico. "You can spend that money elsewhere, living, not just sustaining."
Co-living has also gained traction in a Brooklyn apartment building that creates a networking and social community for its residents and where prospective residents answer probing questions like "What are your passions?" and "Tell us your story (Excite us!)." If accepted, tenants live in what the company's promotional materials describe as a "highly curated community of like-minded individuals." Millennials are staying single longer than previous generations have, creating a glut of people still living on their own in apartments, rather than marrying and buying homes. But the generation is also notoriously social, having been raised on the Internet and the constant communication it provides. This is a generation that has grown accustomed to college campuses with climbing walls, infinity pools, and of course, their own bathrooms. Commonspace gives these Milliennials the benefits of living with roommates—they can save money and stay up late watching Gilmore Girls—with the privacy and style an entitled generation might expect. "It's the best of both worlds," says Michelle Kingman. "You have roommates, but they're not roommates."
Co-living has also gained traction in a Brooklyn apartment building that creates a networking and social community for its residents and where prospective residents answer probing questions like "What are your passions?" and "Tell us your story (Excite us!)." If accepted, tenants live in what the company's promotional materials describe as a "highly curated community of like-minded individuals." Millennials are staying single longer than previous generations have, creating a glut of people still living on their own in apartments, rather than marrying and buying homes. But the generation is also notoriously social, having been raised on the Internet and the constant communication it provides. This is a generation that has grown accustomed to college campuses with climbing walls, infinity pools, and of course, their own bathrooms. Commonspace gives these Milliennials the benefits of living with roommates—they can save money and stay up late watching Gilmore Girls—with the privacy and style an entitled generation might expect. "It's the best of both worlds," says Michelle Kingman. "You have roommates, but they're not roommates."
There will be a few people that will completely ruin the shared living space for everyone, and if there's no one to police it, the whole place will go to hell.
So like assisted living for old people.
These sorts of projects either go *really* well. Or *really really* badly. It just depends on who owns everything, who is responsible for fixing/cleaning, and what sort of people you get in there.
So if you get a bunch of people who are really into 'lets fix everything' and 'here let me help you do that' you may do OK. If you get a bunch of slack ass jerk offs it will end badly.
Still too much for 300 square feet. That's a luxury apartment in Japan, and they still don't charge 700 to 800...ok maybe they do in some areas, but still.
This sounds like a traditional SRO -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
Someone will apply, get rejected, and sue, because they were turned down due to age, income level, number of children, political affiliation, type of job - or any of the other hundred reasons to sue for housing discrimination.
"Highly curated" is just another term for "we don't want your smelly kind here, peasant!"
Called an apartment complex. If the corporate owner slapped on a coat of exterior paint, added new landscaping and jacked up the rents, it's called an luxury apartment complex. An apartment complex next door to a college university isn't that far removed from a dorm.
In order to do that, they would have to get jobs first...
They used to have adult dorms very similar to what's described...state mental hospitals. :-)
Seriously. I somehow doubt this catching on. Every Millenial portrait I've seen/heard/read is a caricature...I have seen very few people who fit what are cemented as unshakable models of the generation. Outside of San Francisco hipster startup culture, I doubt anyone actually wants to live in a college dorm past their early 20s. I graduated in the 90s, so I was just before the generation that had all sorts of crazy dorm amenities like private bedrooms...my brother who is 6 years younger than I got to experience apartment style living.
Just because people grow up with Facebook, Instagram and Twitter doesn't make them all narcissistic social butterflies. It seems to me that if someone actually wanted this kind of experience, they could choose to live in a densely populated urban core and talk to their neighbors more often.
Excuse me? A room full of people staring at their phones is "social" now? I'm old? ( turned 30 in june )
A dorm is a place to got to sleep. If you want to get stuck with the same people stay in your parents house, is cheaper!. Go out, meet different people
No thanks. It was fun for about two weeks, then I made friends with people I actually wanted to spend time with, and they weren't my dorm mates.
21 microunits, each packed with a tiny kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, and living space into 300-square-feet
I don't get it... Why are they calling 300 square feet "microunits"? Sounds like a relatively normal size to me... Of course, I live in midtown Manhattan, so for $2,200 a month my wife and I get a 350 square foot place in a building with 20 of them (though I think unit 1D, by the stairwell might be smaller). We have a nice kitchen...
> for lonely millenials
"If there's a hanger on my door knob, don't come-a-knockin' because I am busy making sweet love to my palm."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I don't think this is a bad idea at all, but when I moved out of the dorm one thing I actually missed was the cafeteria and meal plan.
I remember disliking the food a lot, but although I ate better living in an apartment, eating better was a burden in terms of shopping, cooking, times where food got tossed because plans and schedules change, etc. I actually found myself missing the sheer convenience of food service. Even though I didn't always love what the hot choices were and opted for yet another salad and sandwich bar sandwich, all I had to do was show up.
The shared area around the rooms would be interesting (I remember the common areas being popular), but I would worry it would be too noisy and chaotic. They'd have to do something clever with architecture and flow to make it so that individual rooms remained quiet.
Why can't they create their own jobs by finding what people want, making it, and selling it to them?
Obligatory xkcd.
To summarise: it is a well known fact that those people who most want to live that way are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarise the summary: anyone who is able of getting such a room should on no account be allowed to do so. To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem.
Fight for your bitcoins!
And then pay off their student loans.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If this is anything like a university dorm, an RA will be around to connect such a tenant with an occupational therapist who can provide training in basic hygiene and social skills.
If dorm life is anything to go by, you penny his door every night. And on weekends you rig up the Flour Wall to really fuck with him.
Hey, if you're gonna live like broke college students, may as well go whole hog.
I see we have a selfish noise-maker here. Fuck you too. And use headphones you fucking asshole.
A dorm is a place to got to sleep.
True, reflecting the term's Latin roots.
If you want to get stuck with the same people stay in your parents house, is cheaper!
However, dorm life can be worth the expense if jobs near the dorm pay more than jobs near the parents' residence, be it in money or in career-relevant experience.
With 21 twentysomethings sharing space, I can only imagine the sheer amount of drama and bullshit that will occur on a daily basis.
Also, 21 people sharing a common space? This is Slashdot, I don't need to repeat the story of "the tragedy of the commons".
The problem with this idea is that people will be fine with it for a year or two post-graduation, but it's going to start to suck fairly quickly after that.
It's not unusual for people to cling to elements of their student life after they graduate and get their first jobs. I did the same myself; moved into a shared house with a few people I'd known at university and tried to keep a student-ish lifestyle running alongside a full-time job.
It lasted 18 months. Then I gave up and rented a place on my own.
The demands of being a full member of the workforce are very different to the demands of being a student. When you're having to get up at a set time every morning (and generally pretty early), find yourself getting older and needing a regular sleep-pattern, needing a quiet space to do work that actually matters (rather than essentially being for your own benefit, as your work as a student was) and so on, the whole shared-living thing breaks down pretty rapidly. Irritations about your cohabitees different body-clocks, cooking smells, personal hygiene and expectations of reasonable noise levels all start to feel much more important than they did when you were still studying. And as you get more and more irritated with them, they are getting more and more irritated with you.
On top of that, this is generally the time when many people are going to be getting into more lasting romantic relationships, which might eventually lead to marriage and kids. This is not easy when you're sharing accommodation with a bunch of other people and personal space is a scarce commodity.
I guess they might make this work as a commercial proposition if it's a short-term rental affair. The problem is that if you get longer-term residents who age significantly past the incomers, this is going to turn into a vision of hell pretty fast.
What this certainly isn't is an alternative to providing sufficient quantities of decent quality new housing suitable for long-term occupation and family life. That's what we're very short of here in the UK. The issue here for Millennials is that whether or not they want to live like this, they may well have no choice. The option of renting my own place that was open to me more than a dozen years ago (let alone buying one, as I later did) is a lot less accessible now, due to rising rents.
>> What millenials REALLY want is affordable practical realistic proper housing
And we gave it to you via the housing crash and the lowest mortgage rates in history.
At least the price is right unlike college where they cost more then renting ON YOUR OWN for not even full year round.
Framing microapartments as a solution for millennials is cute, but these are really designed to maximize the real estate developer's profit. These crammed spaces create other problems, namely parking (not just for residents, think visiting friends and family). In cities with extensive public transit, they may work better. For Syracuse, what is the point? The city council should think twice about allowing this type of housing.
Reminds me more of "Brave New World". Mustapha Mond would be proud; we're working ourselves into exactly the population that Huxley describe:
- "[T]hey also want to be social and never lonely" (Very nearly a direct quote from the book) ...and the comments here are filled with examples of the sexual angle...
- "Millennials are staying single longer than previous generations" (No more moms and dads...)
Of course, the quotes from the article are, like, that guy's opinion man, but I'm assuming he's done the research enough to see that those are at least somewhat accurate assertions.
Between Orwell and Huxley, I think Huxley was more accurate.
Assuming that their baby boomer parents bothered to leave anything for them. Millenials might be the first generation in a long time to get the shaft by their departing parents.
Why are they calling 300 square feet "microunits"?
Because such an apartment is smaller than the smallest single-family dwellings that some city building codes allow. This has forced some supporters of the small house movement to mount a house on wheels to avoid regulations that apply only to permanent structures.
A highly curated community of like minded individuals sounds like the opposite of diversity. Or maybe they'll have a few tokens allowed in so they can point with pride to their open-minded brand of like mindedness.
If cable, internet, and utilities are included then it becomes a much more reasonable price
When they reject my application because I'm 45, will that be discriminatory?
A guy with his girlfriend and his boyfriend moved into the triplex next door. One day the guy came knocking on the door and accused my roommate of making sexual advances towards his boyfriend. My roommate told him he was stupid and slammed the door. Since my roommate's bedroom window was opposite to their bedroom window, the guy called the police to accuse me roommate of watching him have sex with his girlfriend. After three late night police visits, we moved out a month later. A former neighbor later told me it took two years to get that freak show out of the neighbor.
Huxley actually was an insider - he and his brother. I haven't researched him enough to know why he exposed the plan to the general populace, I can only assume he was genuinely against it. I've got the follow up book to Brave New World but haven't read it yet. I think Orwell was just very observant. Again, I need to research the author to be sure. In both cases the authors did a great job of putting out warnings for the rest of us.
I used to say the U.K. was getting 1984 while the U.S. was getting Brave New World. I've decided it a blend for both.
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Co-ops or "Cooperative Houses" like this have existed forever, and they're still very common now.
That depends on the zoning code in effect where you live.
but of course Millennials have to re-invent everything under a new name so they feel like it's theirs and only theirs.
Or they may have to find a way to legally distinguish a slightly tweaked idea from an older idea prohibited by existing zoning codes.
The first generation? People in their 40's are being called "the lost generation" - squeezed between the pollution/debt/war/recession created by the boomers, and narcissist demands of millennials.
TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions Wikipedia
The Wikipedia article on the book seems to indicate that he thought of Brave New World as a dystopia, so I'm assuming he was against such a future.
>> It doesn't help the millenials who don't.
I'm not sure I'm following you. In many places, prices of "starter" housing dropped by around 50% from the mid-2000's to now. Right now, you can buy your choice of 2-bedroom homes for about $70K where I live - $90K if you want to live on the water. And the financing required to get these homes is cheaper than ever. A $100K mortgage at current rates is less than $500/month. And jobs are plentiful as long as you don't have some kind of useless liberal arts degree. Right now, you could find multiple companies within a half hour drive that would started a guy like me out of college between $50-60K.
It's actually middle-aged folks who took it in the shorts with the housing crisis because we had already locked in mortgages at a higher value and experienced a loss of home value, effectively locking many of us in our current location (where before we could easily flip and move) and putting a lot of people "under water" (Google that) so they couldn't refinance with the lower rates.
Especially not for $800/month.
I'm a millennial by about a day and 5 hours. I own a house with a large backyard. Absolute freedom.
I cannot believe I am in the same generation as the dudebro airheads who would pay through the nose to live in a sardine can.
(Granted, I will probably never marry, since I've avoided being alone with a woman in public, especially after dark, and never ever in private ever since getting the "you are a rapist who has not yet been caught in the act yet. don't say you're not a rapist. you just don't know it yet" presentation during the date rape portion of college orientation. That was their advice for how to avoid being expelled for alleged rape, and I've followed it ever since. Call it misogyny if you want. I call it playing it safe. I don't see what I would have missed out on. Divorce after 3 years, having some bitch take half my shit, and owing her half my paycheck for the rest of my life? No thanks.)
prospective residents answer probing questions like "What are your passions?" and "Tell us your story (Excite us!)."
What. The. Living. Fuck. No thanks. My passions are here's the security deposit and year or 6 month's rent up font. My story is I need somewhere to stay, here's some money, and the rest is none of your fucking business.
We're all doomed.
Rule through fear instead of through idealistic government agencies.
lucm, indeed.
Seriously, millennials are getting a lot of crap (just like every generation) for their lifestyle. Much of the caricature is the result of their rational reaction to an insecure life. Most folks in general would love to have a steady job and to own a home. Once you start expecting to have to change jobs every 6-18 months when your startup flops, or you get downsized out of your corporate one, you start looking at the whole world as temporary. Throw in low wages for the younger set, and even steady work doesn't let you live terribly well. Having a 5 year loan on a car becomes a huge liability if you have to make ends meet on unemployment, rather than just a monthly expense if you have a decent salary and some decent job security.
The son of one of our good friends falls into the hipster camp (young, gay, lived in San Francisco, worries about fashion too much, uses words I've never head before), and he and his new husband still want the same thing everyone else wants, a secure roof over their head. It cost them $500k for a 1 bed, 1 bath in Oakland to make it happen. So these kids are still going through huge hoops to get their crumb of the American Dream (I mean Oakland, really?!). I see no "entitlement" complex, just people trying to live in a world that has changed a lot from when I was their age and starting out.
A major draw of the bay area is that unlike many other places, it is very easy to get another job when your company inevitably spits you out on the street. In smaller towns the corporate pressure to cut costs is just as strong, but the chances of picking up another job without ripping up your life and moving are vastly diminished. Here in Portland we get a lot of California transplants who move once they have enough years of experience to be able to get a decently secure job in an area where they can actually afford a house. Just people making rational decisions in a pretty irrational world.
It's reverse psychology. Whatever Russia does, the West needs to do the opposite. Coming soon: Lada's in the USA!
Co-op living have been around for a long time. Maybe they're trying to give it a more mainstream or upmarket image, but it's not really new.
Back 20 years ago 3 or 4 people would buy a hose or large apartment together and split the rent with each taking a bedroom. It was way cheaper than 3 or 4 single apartments and you would share the common space. Does that still exist?
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
So people want the headaches of dealing with potentially completely unknown strangers to have conflicts with? I used to work for a college and the dorms were dominated by conflicts between roomies 90% of the time from the sound of it... Regardless of how well they tried to find similar people to put together with surveys and other measures. That's also with thousands of people to work with each year as well.
These sounds like serious headaches.
we are all invisible unless we choose otherwise
Assuming that their baby boomer parents bothered to leave anything for them. Millenials might be the first generation in a long time to get the shaft by their departing parents.
"Ask not what your parents can do for you – ask what you can do for your parents"
- Paraphrasing someone wiser and less entitled than you
lucm, indeed.
I've always felt like we got Huxley's society and Orwell's government.
I'm way too old to directly relate, but I work with plenty of people in the millennial generation and can still remember what life was like for me in my 20's.
Off-hand, I can see the attraction for a certain segment of the population, but don't know that I'd call it a "trend" just yet? In a way, this reminds me of those restaurants (most often the Japanese Steakhouses) where they purposely seat you at a table next to a number of strangers. Some people really enjoy the encouragement to socialize it creates, but others simply find it uncomfortable and even if they had a good time trying it once, aren't eager to repeat it.
Just because the younger generation likes to stay in constant contact/communication via the Internet doesn't necessarily mean they desire the same thing in daily life, out in the real world. IMO, a lot of people who constantly chat online are the same ones who aren't that comfortable in traditional social situations. The Internet is their social outlet BECAUSE they don't find it so easy to casually chat with random people if they're placed in the same room with them and have to be judged by their clothing choices, facial expressions, etc.
With the 20-somethings I encounter at work, I see a lot of them pairing up as roommates with friends, but not so much interested in communal living arrangements.
Oblig...
My neighbor knocked on my door at 2:30 am? You believe that? 2:30 in the morning!
Lucky for him I was still up playing my drums.
That helps the middle aged folks who already have mortgages.
It doesn't help the millenials who don't.
It absolutely did not help middle aged folks with mortgages. Although the interest rates were lower, you couldn't get a refi if you tried. First of all, the housing values had dropped so precipitously that you couldn't refinance without putting massive amounts of cash into the refi. Second, although the prime rate was practically zero, the interest rates that the banks were offering were still in the 4.5-5% range. They were very hesitant to lend to consumers, because after borrowing the money for practically free from the government, it made much more economic sense to turn around and lend that borrowed money back to the government to buy bonds, which paid a couple of percent. It's not much profit, but it is guaranteed. If you had free money given to you and could invest it for 2%, would you do that or loan to a consumer at 2%? You would take the guarantee. How about loan to the consumer at 4%? I don't know. 5%? Yeah, you would probably give a little bit out to the consumer if you could get 5%.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
While I agree with most of what you said, I don't think marriage is quite the death sentence you make it out to be. My wife and I share your horror at the bastardization of the term "rape culture", and have serious reservations about ever wanting our children to go to College or University at this point for the reasons you stated and more. There are plenty of people out there of the opposite sex who would agree with your point of view, but for fucks sake, you certainly won't find them at a place of "learning".
How is the implementation of the very things spelled out in the paper of Agenda 21 off topic?
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The first generation? People in their 40's are being called "the lost generation" - squeezed between the pollution/debt/war/recession created by the boomers, and narcissist demands of millennials.
That's Generation Jones, and they're actually born between 1954-1965. We get lumped in with Baby-Boomers all the time, but my experience has been that we got the boomers' leftovers, more so than any generation that followed. It wasn't uncommon for my class to be the last "senior" class in a school before it closed. I was in 6th grade and they close the school after me, same for 9th and 12th. Thanks to the Reagan mentality that overtook so many boomers, college tuition was raised by double-digits yearly. Every generation thinks it has it hardest when it's young.
As for this particular story, it seems that we have generations now that refuse to grow up. Hint, if you have a BA in history and can't find a job, getting a masters or a PhD won't help especially when you have to pay back that loan.
So kill that "rescue" dog, marry your girlfriend and get a job. Any job. You have to start a career somewhere and no one starts at the top.
As a GenXer, I hate both Baby Boomers and Millennials..
Err, no one told them to take on those loans. Local community colleges can do the same task for a whole lot less, and trade schools or apprenticeships are even better at keeping costs low (with a much faster ROI).
I can't really bring myself to feel pity for something that most people walked into willingly and with open eyes. After all, adulthood (and the responsibilities thereof) has to start at some point...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Millenials might be the first generation in a long time to get the shaft by their departing parents.
Question: Would that include the record number of Millennials who still live at home with their parents? As someone from a slightly previous generation, I was kicked out of the nest at 18, full stop.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Peer Pressure and Social Pressure can be powerful, powerful pushers when you're below 20.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
I love how at the bottom, after being insulted repeatedly about what I and my generation like, and are like (generalizations all of them), then I'm called entitled! Apparently, the one thing I am entitled to is brash generalizations about who I am and what I want.
My parents didn't kick me out of the house when I turned 18. My father had me work with him in construction for two years. I didn't move out of the house until I was 23 and halfway through college. That's when I found out that my mother put all the utilities and a credit card in my name. Turned out that they needed my financial support more than I needed theirs.
I don't understand why this gets such negativity. I for one welcome the change in our stiff way of life. Living in a community makes people responsible and accountable. What happens when you take that away? Big city people. Have you met them? Everyone hates New Yorkers, Parisians, etc. Why? Because they don't live in a community, they're just another 'anon'.
In Capitalist US, the commerce controls the Government.
Actually, if they were anything like me, a whole lot of people told them to take the loans. I was smart enough to choose a well-paying field but when I finished school the situation for me wasn't as rosy as everyone encouraging me to take loans along the way had said it would be. When I was using loans, everyone was saying CS grads were being stolen from the school before they could even get degrees. If you take loans you can get through and have better opportunities on the other end. (Dot com bubble by the way.) However, even outside my field, there was plenty of pressure for my friends to take loans and make it up on the back end over working and possibly never finishing.
My roommate and the people next door were Mexicans. I may be a redneck, but I don't come from a white trash family.
like seniors apartments. Different amenities, but those can change as the overgrown children age
All the downsides of a small rural community (everybody knows everything you're doing and they all gossip so you live inside a potentially absurd reputation maintenance loop) combined with all the downsides of city apartments (you don't really own anything and are subject to the arbitrary decisions of the owners and politicals).
America was for many immigrants a chance to escape the tenements of Europe and carve a new life out of the American Indian...
But if you hate and fear the challenges of freedom, and want to live your life in a totally safe space, maybe tenements are perfect? I dunno.
Don't. Love them for their flaws.
You're sitting in between the boomers that leave the workforce, freeing up a lot of jobs, and Millennials that come with an air of entitlement that no employers wants to touch them with a ten foot pole if he can at all avoid it.
Call it what you want, but I call it job security.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Don't get this wrong (though I don't know what the right way to get it would be...), but ... What I can only hope for is that the Boomers die soon. We cannot afford pushing through a generation twice as large with half as many people actually working for it.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I see no mention of pulling upward on bootstraps or the application of gumption to the situation! No indication that these entitled youngsters just need to try much harder than $CURRENT_TRYING_LEVEL to get out of these low-paying jobs which were *only meant to support teenagers getting a first job while in school* (which makes it OK if hard-working, educated adults are stuck with them forever).
What kind of bleeding-heart liberal nonsense is this!? :-P
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Oh great, that's what this world needed. Another -ism. What are we gonna call it, generationism?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I'm sure this is a desirable setup for some people, the main problem I see is that you will have roommates, and not roommates of your own choice.
Grab ten random people and just try to get them to agree on anything, say for example the dish washing schedule, or the reasonable time to turn down the volume on the gaming system. The more people you live with the more problems you have to deal with.
"Grab them by the pussy" -- President of the United States of America
... the age of adulthood just increased from 27 to 35.
I have to admit, it's a guilty pleasure of mine to watch people fail at raising kids. And there is really no shortage whatsoever of this being on display.
Personally, I am quite certain that failed kids are the fault of their parents. So... what is our fault? Because I would be pretty much within the demographic of the current parent generation of teenagers to young adults. What were our "values" and how did we fail to transport them in a way that would make our kids useful for our society?
Don't get me wrong here. Every single generation since we climbed off those trees failed horribly at raising their kids in retrospect. I just want to know where we blundered. So our kids can make different mistakes.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"Nobody told them to take on those loans." Are you mental? The school, the government, financial "aid," the guidance counselors, parents, corporations requiring a 4 year degree to make photocopies. And al though oftentimes community college is good enough, when there's an abundance of desperate University grads from name brand schools, corporations get their pick. Who do you think they're going to choose, Harvard grad or Bumfuck CC grad?
Your flippant attitude reflects your ignorance of the job situation for young adults. I have a bachelor's in accounting, a master's in tax, a CPA license, and a 3.9 GPA. Guess how long it took to get my first entry level job? 2 years from 2009 to 2011. I can only imagine it to be infinitely worse for people without a professional degree and license.
The concept sounds similar to the terrafoam welfare dorms from Marshall Brain's Manna:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna...
At least this building would have individual bathrooms, and the building's small enough that there are windows for everyone...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
They are wise not to buy them. I have never made a worse financial decision in my life than becoming a home owner, I discourage everyone I meet from ever purchasing real estate. Renting an inexpensive place and spending the difference on hard drugs is a far better idea.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
well I'm not looking to hire any landscapers so they should probably start by getting off my lawn...
do not read this line twice.
Oh look, everybody - it's the most interesting man in the world.
Most people live quite boring lives. I'm just here to provide inspiration.
That's why you're sitting at work typing on Slashdot all day, clearly.
Slashdot to exist to amuse me at work while I'm waiting for a script to complete. It's also preparation for writing my memoirs.
Jesus christ, my studio apartment is 350 sqft with kitchen & bath. This isn't new, this is called "living within your means" in an expensive city.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Then the solution is clear. We must go back in time and prevent publication of current best-selling dystopian fiction, by any means necessary. Live humans can't make it back, so we'll have to build, program, and send (cue music here) a Literminator.
>> not that prices went down
Prices did go down. Way down. (http://www.jparsons.net/housingbubble/united_states.png)
>> nobody could buy a house at any price under a few bucks, since nobody had hundreds of thousands of dollars
You still didn't need "hundreds of thousands" but you now need 20% down (e.g., $20K of $100K) and I think that's a good thing. It's not fun to get that first $20K together, but it's possible with a few years of work (e.g., $500/mo for 3.5 years), and the discipline of being able to save is a good sign to creditors that you'll be able to pay a regular mortgage (e.g., $500/mo for the next 30 years).
I suspect that hotels operate on a different set of tenant laws (depending on state), where eviction is likely a whole lot easier to accomplish. I recall that, for instance, Oregon tenant laws allow for faster evictions of (and less stringent laws concerning) 'temporary' tenants (e.g. those who live in a hotel).
In most US states, law splits at 30 days. Under 30 days, it's transient accommodations (e.g., hotels, retreats, crisis centers, etc), over 30 days, it's a rental. Typically you can evict a "guest" (aka boarder or lodger) if they...
* can't pay
* overstays the contract period or otherwise violates the terms (e.g., smoking in a non-smoking room, having too many people in the room)
* safety risk (drunk/disorderly, infectious/contagious disease)
* violating the law (e.g., drugs, prostitutes, etc)
There generally is no appeals process for eviction from transient accommodations. The proprietor can simply change the locks (easy to do with common electronic keycards) or call the police and have the people and their belongings immediately removed for trespassing (just like a restaurant). That would be illegal for a landlord to do to a tenant.
The only catch is that if the hotel cannot simply throw a persons' belongings in the street if the person is not present, but generally has the duty to safeguard the personal belongings until the person returns for them (if they need to rent the room out again, the general procedure is to take a picture of all the crap, pack it up into a bag and put it in a locked closet). Generally, if it is unclaimed after 6 months, the hotel can dispose of the items.
There is also an in-between situation where you can be legally classified as a boarder/lodger even if you stay over 30 days. The distinction is if you occupy part of premises but whose occupation/residency is still under the control of the owner. For example, if you rent a room in someone's private house that doesn't have its own entrance. Or maybe the owner still vacuums your room periodically or provides laundry services for you or free breakfast, you might be a classified lodger/boarder instead of a tenant and sacrifice most tenant rights even though your stay is over 30 days...
The same people pushing these are the ones that have 50 percent of millenial workers being outsourced without benefits.
They're not your friends.
They're not your allies.
But they do embrace National Socialism.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Instead of a collection of itty-bitty bedrooms, co-op living is actually pretty damn good. I lived in the Co-op at UC Berkeley during my 3+ years there. I made some truly life-long friends there. You can't live comfortably in that unless you are social enough to accept the requirement to get along and do your part. Doing your part is essential in a co-op. Your mother doesn't live there anymore. If you don't do it, it doesn't get done.
It's also dirt cheap. Currently in the Berkeley Co-op, it costs about $700 for room and board. And just across the bay in San Francisco, 1 bedroom apartments are renting for $3500 to $4000/month.
And every single generation bitches about the one that immediately follows it, in much the same way that high school sophomores bitch the most about the freshmen. My generation was labelled as a bunch of shoe-gazing fuck-offs, but that stopped once we became adults. Then, of course, we turned around and called the next generation entitled garbage. Some Gen-Xers were (and are) slackers, some have a great work ethic; likewise, some Millenials are entitled shits and always will be, others are decent people with a good grip on reality. Most of the Millenials I know (nieces, nephews, and coworkers) fall solidly into the latter category.
Writhe your naked ass to the mindless groove.
It strikes me that creating a community without your "fatal flaw", that is, with the ability for the group to throw person(s) X out of their living space, is a lifestyle end game that will magnify political correctness, mommyism, retribution, and groupthink to their maximum level of imposition.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
College dorms run pretty well but there is a good reason why. Any problems in a dorm can bring down the wrath of Khan upon you. Getting tossed out of college without any refund or even a willingness to credit you for past semesters can come to roost in your gut over a single problem. A thrown punch meant expulsion. In some colleges one beer was enough to get you expelled even if you had that beer at home on New Year's Eve. A dorm run with a lower level of control may not work at all. And by the way $800 a month rent is far too nasty anywhere for any dwelling.
Meetup.com is OK, but it really depends where you are I think. I used to live near NYC and the outdoors groups there had lots of 20- and 30-something singles, it was like a big singles mixer. Now I live near DC and this place seems to suck; the outdoors groups seem to only have older people. I'm not sure what the ~30-40 crowd is doing here, but it doesn't seem to be hiking. I wish I could move back to NYC and just live there, but unless you're into finance, there's no jobs there for programmers.
They are basically renting 300 sq-ft apartments with a nice common room. All the rest is bullshit.
How it will work will depend entirely on the rent price.
They are trying to push some "interesting" concept, but in the end it doesn't matter. What matter are the basics : price, size, location, ...
Orwell was an optimist
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
And if you live on the 8th floor you extend planks between your dorm window and your neighbors so you could visit and drink beer while enjoying the view. WHen I think of the insane shit we did when I was at the Uni. I cringe....
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
That's what outsourcing is for!
I wasn't kicked out of the house, lived at my parent's until I got married. But my wife was kicked out of her house at the age of 16. Some step fathers can be drunken punks, even if they were part of "the greatest generation".
Oy. That's like trying to fit your entire life into a room 17.3 feet on a side. Bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, everything. Not counting any walls that might subdivide that space. Even with terrific use of vertical space (unless far more abundant than horizontal space), that's pushing it unless your mode of "living" is similar to a monk's. Perhaps even then. Plus, in this case, you have common areas where you can't escape people you are very likely not to get along with. And very, very close neighbors. You'll end up living in noise-cancelling full-earcup headphones.
What this really says is you poor kids just don't realize how truly disadvantaged you are and how badly your preconceptions have set you up to tolerate suffering. I live in a home with one other person where we have about 5,000 (or 6,500 if you want to count some of the non-environmentally controlled spaces like the deck) square feet. That is what you can have. I really cannot understand why anyone other than a monk would think that trying to live within 300 square feet is anything but a punishment regimen. Not to mention the cost of $8000+ per year, which is like paying a premium to be abused.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Where I attended school it was still comparatively expensive but I got a lot of scholarships to pay for it and funded the rest by making use of the GI Bill. This was before the bill was reformed into its better form, that they have today. I was born in '57, by the way.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Hint, if you have a BA in history and can't find a job, getting a masters or a PhD won't help especially when you have to pay back that loan.
It helped me. I have a BA in History and a MA in International Relations (big improvement, I know). But I firmly believe my Master's degree went a long way to getting me my current position (not in the field), where I am the youngest person in my department out of 250 people (and as one of the newer hires just survived a headcount reduction to boot). With a raise coming up next month I will end the year making double what I was making at the beginning of the year. Granted, I also worked for my company part time all through college (since 2006) and went from seasonal to part time to full time over that time period. I am also "lucky" in that I only have debt from grad school, didn't have to pay for undergrad. I also just got married and bought a house in the suburbs. So yes, we can be successful, even with "useless" degrees (I hardly find history to be useless, but that's another discussion)
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Ouch, bad timing to be looking during the bottom of the recession. I know the feeling, if not the duration you went through it.
My son got his MS in computer science in 2008 and it took him a little over a year to get a job. I was laid off in 2009, but fortunately it only took me three months to find a new job.
I got my career started in 1980, after looking for work for 9 months. That was a pretty bad economy, with 8% unemployment and 13% inflation. The worst part was that for the 9 months I was looking for a job, I was a newlywed being supported by my wife. Unemployment peaked in 1982 or thereabouts at around 10% and I almost got laid off then, too.
It's funny how you all seem to think this is new, original, or even true. Those evil boomers! *sighs* I could quote Plato but that would be too easy. Instead, I'm going to quote Charlie Daniels...
"My younger bother calls me a killer and my daddy calls me a vet."
It's more catchy than Plato. Don't worry, you too will be reviled by the youth of tomorrow. Even though you're pretty sure you made the right decisions at the time, you'll still be subjected to being lumped in with those who were intentionally malicious. Oh, no, but you're different and you're right! Yeah, so weren't all the generations before you.
By the way, the name of the song is "Still in Saigon" as I recall. It is monumentally more catchy than anything Plato ever wrote. I dare say, it's set to music better than anything Plato ever wrote, too.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
OK, you may very well be a troll, but I'll bite, because I've seen a lot of this misguided attitude around here.
Grants vs loans is more of a Democrats vs Republicans thing than a generational thing, but there has never been all out state funding of higher education in the US.
I don't know how that can be blamed on a generation rather than on the people giving bad loans and the non-baby boomers taking those bad loans as if they were a way to grow money. When I bought my first house inflation was double digits, unemployment was near 8%, and I was happy to get a loan at a relatively low interest rate of 12.125%, while I made considerably less than the median income and bought way less house than most people do nowadays. So don't come crying to me about today's real estate market.
No, baby boomers are the generation that lost pensions to companies that went bankrupt for the express purpose of reneging on obligations - if they had pensions in the first place. Baby boomers are the first to be forced to rely on IRAs and 401Ks, if they could manage to save into them. (I'm not complaining, there were plenty of previous generations that had nothing to retire on, not even a social security check that might bounce.)
Marshal Brain wrte about this in Manna .
If it's anything like me, it will happen to you multiple times in the next 50-60 years.
I live in a home with one other person where we have about 5,000 (or 6,500 if you want to count some of the non-environmentally controlled spaces like the deck) square feet. That is what you can have.
If you live in 5,000 square feet for $700 per month, you're either in a very sparsely populated area or in a one-star town like Detroit. There's nothing wrong with that, but that's a lifestyle choice that has nothing to do with being a millenial or not. In any event I doubt that someone who would consider moving in a tiny bedroom in a shared living space because they enjoy the social aspect would be interested to live on a cottage in rural Idaho.
lucm, indeed.
Yeah, nobody but their peers, parents, teachers, high-school guidance counselors, college financial aid office, and the Federal government.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
the GOP will not pay for that you are better off in lockup and there you get a DR that does more then the ER and does not say we don't take medicaid.
So our kids can make different mistakes.
You probably haven't had kids.
One of the worst things about being a parent is watching your kids, in spite of everything you've done to prevent it, make the same stupid mistakes that you did at their age.
-- I have monkeys in my pants.
Community living doesn't come naturally to people in contemporary society.
It sounds similar to what I've heard called "hotelpartments." They're something between a hotel and an apartment. I first encountered them in NW Europe.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Our parents were raised during the 60's, I wonder if that had anything to do with it? You really have to skip a generation for new ideas and ways to 'gel'.
we're working ourselves into exactly the population that Huxley describe
ectogenesis will be here in 20 years
The difference between Orwell and Huxley is top down vs bottom up. If Huxley turns out to be correct, then people will have done it to themselves willingly and without the use of force. Read some Neil Postman.
What exactly is a dystopia? If you were to take someone from the 18th century and plop them down in modern times, or even in the 1960's if you prefer, I'm sure they would consider it a dystopia.
Are you 4212163? If not, sorry. You looked just like 4212163 to me, Mr.U2xhc2hkb3QgU3Vja3M .
Maybe I'm nit-picking, but gp said "people in their 40's" and you are redefining that to people in their 50's. Maybe you just identified with the statement, I dunno, but people in their 40's were born in the decade after the one to which you refer.
You won't get to go out to clubs every night and wander home drunk, as I've done in SF a few times, but there are tradeoffs in life. If that's the lifestyle you chose, then deal with the downside.
I imagine they have quiet hours or whatever. In my dorm it was like 8pm - 8am. And since they already have an RA type person..
Your parents severely fucked you up, kids.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
in the future, everyone is broke so we have to huddle together in ghettos known as dormitories
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
exactly
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
I'm paying $650 for a basement apartment in Chicago with 8' ceilings [it's a hobbit hole] and all utilities included, and think it's a good deal. I've got maybe 850 square feet of living space including a private bathroom and kitchen.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
How does this shafting work? I mean we hear about it a lot, but that money has to go somewhere.
Either the boomers pass it on to their kids directly, in which case they get free wealth, or they spend it which means their kids, or their kids friends, have to work to earn it.
I see no situation where that wealth just evaporates.
Whatever it's called, all I know is that my generation was the best, all those before were out of touch, and all those after don't deserve it.
I think my father, grand father, great grand father and every generation before him had the exact same opinion...
I'm GenX and I love Millenials, especially the tasty little drunk ones with their titties out in bars who happily give it up with little effort.
What a great time to be alive.
My baby boomer brother has a house still that he bought at the top of the market and has an underwater mortgage. If he can't sell the house, he will have no retirement money and won't be able to buy a smaller place. Since he borrowed the down payment from his wife's 401k, she has to continue working to pay off that loan. If has a short sale, walks away, stops working or drops dead, he loses everything. His kids and grand kids won't get anything.
The space is pretty much the norm, by Asian standards. So basically they've taken an idea from East Asian (e.g. Japan but also including the less developed countries of South-East Asia and the non-ghost cities of China) countries with high urban densities and marketed it for Americans who don't want to live in the suburbs. The big difference is that they forgot to add additional stacks, since the typical configuration is packed both horizontally and vertically (i.e. high-rises).
Even though I didn't RTFA, even though I'm making fun of the part I quoted, I actually think it *could* be a decent idea.. if the bedrooms are relatively sound-proof (and don't read anything into that other than wanting to be able to sleep at any time).
But "their own bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens" really IS most of a house, to me. (e.g. my sole TV is in my bedroom.)
Having some other shared areas would be reasonable, IMHO.
I have a baby boomer friend who raised a set of three Xer's with his first wife and set of three Millenials with his second wife. Six kids later, he finally got fixed.
This living situation has advantages but not as a manefestation of greed. I live in PDX and rents being as they are moved to suburbs. I can get a 2 bedroom apt for that!! There are buildings that get bought and rent hiked, new buildings filled in 6 months, raised the rent 30%.. So fuck greed and fuck paying >50% of income for rent. AT REASONABLE PRICES a good choicez.
411 Y0UR 8453 4R3 8310NG 70 U5!! -NSA
Err, no one told them to take on those loans. Local community colleges can do the same task for a whole lot less, and trade schools or apprenticeships are even better at keeping costs low (with a much faster ROI).
I can't really bring myself to feel pity for something that most people walked into willingly and with open eyes. After all, adulthood (and the responsibilities thereof) has to start at some point...
There are plenty of things I did at eighteen that I wouldn't now recommend at fifty. Contrary to popular opinion on slashdot, you do not know everything when you're a teenager.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
all I know is that my generation was the best, all those before were out of touch, and all those after don't deserve it.
Also, the ten best years ever for music coincide exactly with the period between when I was 14 and 24.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I'm GenX and I love Millenials, especially the tasty little drunk ones with their titties out in bars who happily give it up with little effort. .
I still can't see the description "Millenial" without thinking it means someone born in or after 2000, so I feel slightly queasy reading this.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
It's hard to meet people and make friends after college
Only if you found it hard to meet people and make friends in college.
Personally, I found my social life improved tremendously after I left college, mainly because I had a job and could afford to go out drinking all the time.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Not everyone wants to live in San Francisco or Oakland. For the price of a home there, you could retire at age thirty to some quiet little out of the way town, as millions of others do, and live your life for yourself, not serving someone else.
You won't get to go out to clubs every night and wander home drunk, as I've done in SF a few times, but there are tradeoffs in life. If that's the lifestyle you chose, then deal with the downside.
When I was young, no one expected to be able to buy a fucking house when they had just left college. You could live in a big city and go out to clubs every night and wander home drunk because you could still afford to rent somewhere for less than half your salary.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
And then pay off their student loans.
The apartments were designed precisely to remind Millennials that they've never really left school.
Rents in those areas are hilariously high, and they don't need space for more than the 4 S anyway (sleep, shit, shave, and shower). So you can get the space you need, save money on rent without having to spend the money on commutes. The social side is just basic condo perks.
Now, here's hoping they don't skimp on the soundproofing...
But then there's KGIII, who founded his own company when he was 9 and retired as a multi-millionaire by the time he was 13, was ratarsed for the following four decades and now travels the country picking up chicks at will. Combine the two and there's a certain balance.
Maybe they're alter-egos?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Whoa, you had me for a sec there so I went and looked it up. Apparently Millennial means the same as Gen Y, ie birthdays from the 80's to the 00's. So I think I'm still ok :)