I was in a very spirited discussion this week about changes that cities and society are undergoing or will need to undergo.
Almost half of all adults today do some freelancing or work for themselves at least some of the time. This changes the nature of work, leisure, and works and residential spaces.
Fifty years ago, there were only two cities with more than 10 million population. Today, there are 30; 6 are in China and 5 are in India. There are about 4 billion people living in cities today, projected to grow to 7 billion by 2050, which should be about 70% of the world’s population.
Costs of housing are increasing 3x as fast as family income, and trends seem to point toward cities becoming places of systemic unsustainable inequality. Supporting this is the average “home” size in cities has shrunk by about 15% over the last ten years. In fact, given that about ¼ of urban dwellers in Europe fled from crowded cities to ride out the pandemic in suburban or rural areas, and “health or weather crises” seem to be on the increase, there is a possibility that projections calling for huge growth in cities might be mitigated by the inability of cities to adapt to rapid change or chaotic crises.
The traditional family of 2 adults with children is breaking down, and there are different models of supporting individuals and families that are emerging or will emerge.
Space10, a think tank created by Ikea founder Kaav Pour, projects that based on current trends of population and consumption growth, by 2050 we will need 3 earths to sustain the population.
One outcome of all these trends is an exploding interest in shared living or co-living arrangements, where there are some of the living space is private (like possibly bedrooms), others are shared (such as kitchens), and some services may be shared (like childcare). If you think about it, coliving spaces are more efficient than individual living, as many services and spaces are primarily unused most of the time, and can be efficiently shared.
The Covid pandemic has also changed the calculus for sharing spaces and services. Office space demand has shrunk in urban centers, some of which may be convertible to residential shared environments. Child care and home-based education demands have mushroomed, opening up more possibilities for sharing responsibilities. Working from home has become more prevalent.
The age group most often targeted currently is millennials, many of whom have been priced out of the market for owning, or even renting, their own places. Developers are enticed by the possibilities of fitting more people in less space, at a lower cost, but still providing an acceptable living experience.
Retirees are another group that is being enticed into shared experience communities, where recreation, healthcare, and some basic services can be shared.
Two of the hurdles facing the expansion of co-living facilities are 1) that people often associate these spaces with Spartan college dorm-type experiences, which no adult wants, and 2) that the shared spaces are dependent on fostering a sense of community, where people want to live and be together, which is very complicated to engineer.
