I believe homelessness is a lot more complex issue than "let's build some more houses" - and don't forget that the area of land may be expensive as well, or unreachable due to regulations. Small houses with some land around doesn't scale that well, I believe it's needed with high-rise buildings to keep everyone housed.
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yea, seems like urbanization has been skyrocketing for a few decades. I think the best solution to involuntary homelessness is a guaranteed minimum income which would enable all access to live lives they choose for themselves
It wouldn't work in many circumstances but there is still some areas where it may be the best solution.
yea, i think a guaranteed minimum income is best solution enable all people a basic level of consumption so they can make their life into what they choose for themselves.
Indeed, in the US anyways it's not a problem of not enough houses. There are something like 6 times as many empty homes as homeless people. To combat homelessness it might be better to focus on mental healthcare and substance abuse.
yea, but idk how many of those houses are in good condition in county land banks, news super cheap houses constructed in some hinterland could help alleviate homelessness--at least if combined with the resources to enable all to purchase leases/mortgages
but who would want to live in some hinterland? they want to live in Anaheim and that is the problem. They could rent a nice 3 bedroom detached house with a garage in Modesto for like $1000 a month
and they could rent to own for that kind of money outside of where everyone wants to live. Interesting issues,
yup, or you could buy a house in Detroit for a dollar. But they want to live in Southern California near the coast.
yea detroit could be cool if the house is decent condition at least
to get a good one it is probably like $8.
Totally agree, with urbanization continuing we need to build higher. The perfect example for this is Berlin. As the capital of Germany, it is the largest city in terms of area and population. When walking through the city you will see almost no buildings taller than a few stories.
I guess the technology to build these small homes for such a low price it rather going to be used for second homes in tourist areas.
interesting, yea seems like could be increasing sprawl, that is still urbanization?
Berlin is a story for itself.
The mainly low houses there results from fire service laws from a hundred years ago, when the fire ladders were short and fire in higher houses could not have been extinguished. :)
But it seems as if they want to change this soon, as there now exists a lack of free spaces for new houses.
But for Germany there could as well be stated, that there exist states like Mecklenburg, theoretically having enough space for every single inhabitant to have an own house. If building them would not be so expensive, of course...
Sadly, those 3D printed houses would not be a solution anyway, as every house to be built in Germany has to be approved by state officials in advance (in terms of safety, ecologic impact etc.) and those officials would likely never allow such houses, I guess. :)
how interesting regulations can interfere with the market and distort the built environment. Yea it seems like zoning boards with arbitrary power trips is a major factor to preventing more competition for building costs.
yea not cost efficient for square footage where space is a premium, but multi stories I think takes better building material, so more expensive. Ultimately I imagine land cost would be a major factor. Seems like lots of vacant land aross planet, but i imagine landlords want to force people into existing urban areas.
We need farmland to feed the population, and personally I think we need some forests and wilderness as well - for recreation, for the sake of the nature itself, ecosystems and biological diversity. Either we need to stack up people (high-rise apartments) or we need to become fewer people. How much area would we need for the population of Beijing if everyone was supposed to have a house with some land around? Not to forget that a sprawled population needs lots of areas for roads as well.
I'm all for biodiversity and wilderness, sure stacking could be good, but won't the structures eventually need to be replaced? I just think the cheapest structures are single stories, or at least not sky scrapers, we probably could fit all the worlds population in a super tall building if we wanted to, I just think we still have plenty of space.