“People have different perspectives than our parents might have had. They were geared to acquire as much stuff as you can. They buy a big house and fill it up with as much stuff as they can. It’s a paradigm shift. Our generation is not being geared to the acquisitional mindset. It’s more normal for us being able to shift gears.”
On the other hand, most residents seems to be there for economical reasons: the average tenant only stays 12-14 months, and it seems dubious that anyone (other than Steve Sauer) would enjoy living in a micro-housing unit for a long time:
“I certainly don’t want to live this way forever,” she says, “but at this point in my life, it makes it easier. I need to stay close to work, I need free (street) parking, I need something affordable and just the convenience of being in the city. A space like this allows me to be in the city without breaking the bank.”
Affordable housing is a big problem in a highly-regulated market with a lot of money at stake. If these jail-density units continue to proliferate in and around large cities, I fear that we are moving in the wrong direction. They are good indicators of the number of people who are willing to live in a 200 sq. ft dorm room because a) all they do is work and sleep and b) they can't afford the rent anywhere else. It's not a population of people we want to see growing in the US.