Dorms For Grownups: a Solution For Lonely Millennials? 412
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."
Does it come with an RA? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Re:Does it come with an RA? (Score:5, Interesting)
Interestingly enough, even military barracks often came with a CQ desk (and a voluntold person manning it) to keep order, and they reported to an NCO in charge of the building. Didn't slow down much - usually they only responded to something that got too violent or drunken. OTOH, the military imparts a way different mindset, and people get used to living in close quarters very quickly. It's not for everybody; on my part I tolerated it as a necessary evil, and moved into my own quarters (read: apartment) as quickly as my budget allowed.
You just learn to get along, even if you didn't like your bunkmates. If you didn't, then you were gently escorted out back by everyone else, where you and the object of your ire settled things in a quick, violent, but ultimately final* argument. Overall, you learn a valuable set of lessons from the experience of living together in tight quarters. You learn to tolerate personal quirks, you expand your own horizons a bit while you take in other cultures and habits, and you learned to live in a way that didn't outright offend everyone else around you. It's good training for married life, truth be told. ;)
Now for civilians, I don't see it happening very well. The military molded your mind in ways that accommodated close living. Civilians (At least American ones) don't necessarily have the mindset or skills. Some cultures (usually Asian ones) are very well suited for it, but I don't see too many Western folks jumping at the chance unless circumstances (e.g. outrageous local rent costs) make it necessary.
* mind you, nobody died or anything - you just beat the hell out of each other, then drank yourselves silly while you patched things up and sorted the problem out.
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OK, I'm talking out my ass here as my only personal experience with roommates is not military, but in college where I'd only have one roommate at a time, and usually didn't get along all that well with them which led to me moving to my own apartment ASAP. And now that I'm older, I have one failed marriage under my belt so obviously I didn't do so well in living together there either. So the following is theoretical.
Suppose they built a bunch of large buildings like proposed in TFA, divided into groups of
Consequences (Score:3)
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.
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I spent a healthy amount of money over the decades building my AV system...and I like to exercise it. Yes, from time to time, I like to watch the Flintstones and concert volume.
I don't wanna bother people and I don't want them bothering me (kids crying...drives me up the wall).
SO, I don't think I could do this...and besides, I'm renting a 3 bedroom stand alone house with
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Why did you have to bring curry into this?
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Exactly what I was popping in to post.
I had roommates once who, not only plugged the toilet, BUT continued to use it throughout a 4-day weekend while I was away. Getting back to find a toilet overflowing with excrement and two "adults" expecting me to play plumber ...
God bless the RA who stepped in and chewed them out. But seriously? People suck. Enforcement is going to be a nightmare with this - either it won't be strict enough and the common areas will go to shit (loud music until 4am? SOUNDS GOOD), o
The answer is fear. (Score:2)
Rule through fear instead of through idealistic government agencies.
Re:Does it come with an RA? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes there is an RA. From TFA:
Fear not, Evans and partner John Talarico are hiring a “social engineer” who will facilitate group events and maintain harmony among roommates.... the social engineer is there to moderate disputes and kick out anybody who misbehaves.
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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.
Yup.
Because for that generation "being lonely" is lack of "look at mee! look at mee!"
They are less interested in interaction than they are broadcasting to a captive audience.
I say give them what they want, provide melee weapons and mount cameras on the walls with livestreaming to youtube..
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You're looking for an HoA.
assistied living (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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I suspect that landlord/tenant laws (or their enforcement) changed over time and made boarding houses harder to operate; if it's hard to evict a bad tenant when living conditions are that tight/overlapping then the whole model comes crashing down.
This isn't to say that I want a model that allows for incredibly easy eviction without much in the way of notice, but without some means to prevent problems from festering I don't see how this could really work well.
How do hotels do it? How ab
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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).
Countdown to Lawsuit in 3...2...1... (Score:4, Insightful)
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!"
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Well if you have kids living with you then you're already not in their intended market, this sort of thing is a "singles only" sort of place.
...which is likely illegal depending upon the local housing ordinances. "Oh, Jennifer in 7B had her baby last week? Time to write up the eviction notice."
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It’ll be an interesting lawsuit to be sure.
“Singles only” or “no kids” is currently okay only in “senior living facilities” in most states. You can say grandma & grandpa can’t bring their (grand)kids to live in the old folks’ home with them. You *can’t* (legally) say that in any other housing situation in any state that I’m aware of. Nor can you say the opposite, (“families (implying with kids) only”). All falls under
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“Singles only” or “no kids” is currently okay only in “senior living facilities” in most states.
There's also 55+ communities and those are perfectly legal. They refuse kids but couples are welcome, they also usually are ok if only the husband or wife is 55+ and the other one is younger.
There's even a website to find one of those places: http://www.55places.com/ [55places.com]
This has been done before... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:This has been done before... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think a loooonnggg time ago it was called a rooming house. You got a bedroom, your in-room bath was a pitcher of water, wash basin and a chamber pot. Meals were served in the dining room. You went to {bathhouse, whorehouse, river} to bathe, although I'm sure at least some offered a tub once a week.
Then they had efficiency apartments. I lived in one built in the 1920s -- galley kitchen, breakfast nook, one giant room, large closet and a bathroom.
I rather liked the efficiency. For a while I used the breakfast nook as my bedroom with a curtain to separate it off, which made the one large room more like a combined living/dining area.
It was also dirt cheap, but I never felt quite like an adult until I moved into a place with an actual bedroom.
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That still exists, but now there's webcams and it costs $29.99 a month to watch.
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My mother used to visit with an old lady named Mrs. Jones every so often. Being a kid, I couldn't figure out how my mother knew this woman. My mother was from 100 miles away and Mrs. Jones wasn't related to us or a friend of anyone else in the family.
Then I figured out that, she had run a house where young single women would stay. My mother had been dating my father since college, but they didn't get married immediately because she is two years older, so dad had to finish college first and then had to sa
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My school has that, but first year students have to live in the crusty old dorms built in the 1970s. Genders are separated, and multiple people sleep in the same room on bunks. When people think of dorms, they think of that. Not the new thing you describe.
And yeah, I'll agree with you, it sucks - they charge per student, rather than per unit. So at the new buildings you're paying something like $800 a month for a bedroom, and so is everyone else in that apartment. In a 4 (cramped) bedroom apartment they're
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Isn't the main difference between an apartment and a dormitory that in an apartment you don't have to share facilities? You get your own kitchen, bathroom and living space. In a dorm even your bedroom might be shared (bunk beds).
Or is it something else? I'm not American, but I always thought that an apartment was what British people call a flat. The most minimal we have is a "studio flat", which is basically one room that has kitchen, living space and bedroom in one, and then a separate bathroom.
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Typically, yes.
What most people in North America mean by apartment is "you have a self-contained unit to dwell in; kitchen, living space, bathroom, possibly a bedroom". Your studio flat is the same as our studio apartment. With the possible exception of laundry, it's got all its own facilities.
This seems to be giving an intermediate solution between living on your own, and living with you
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No, these were called "boarding houses". They were zoned out of existence in most places because they attracted a transient, low income population that was thought to be undesirable.
In today's "gig economy" we have all become transient low income workers, so the stigma has been removed. Of course they need a trendy new name like "co-living", this is the 21st century.
In china, they just call them factory dorms (generally owned by the factory to house transient workers that come in from the countryside)...
I think google and facebook (Anton Menlo [antonmenlo.com]) were thinking about building a few of these...
Recently, these things seem to turn out so well [nytimes.com], I wonder why they don't build more ;^(
I've seen this before (Score:3)
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.
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I've seen this as well. They're called "retirement homes," and they're populated with indigent elderly living on their government benefits. There are huge buildings full of them near all major public hospitals in the US.
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Outside of San Francisco hipster startup culture, I doubt anyone actually wants to live in a college dorm past their early 20s.
And even then, it may be because living near an employer in the Bay Area has become unaffordable.
Notoriously Social????? (Score:2, Insightful)
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At 30 you weren't "ready to die," you were lucky to not have been randomly killed by something yet. You might have been in great health at 30 until you got an infected cut on your little finger and died from it.
Microunits Sound Normal (Score:3)
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...
Standard set by building code (Score:3)
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 [wikipedia.org] to mount a house on wheels to avoid regulations that apply only to permanent structures.
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300 feet is pretty small. A normal size single bedroom apartment is more like 700. Well everywhere I have lived and either had or known someone who had a single anyway. Disclosure I have never lived in NYC or Tokyo. Usually a two bedroom will be around 900 ft.
So 300ft is pretty tight. It sounds like we really are talking about something the size of your college dorm room + a little kitchen space + tv area. I guess it would be alright for someone who just graduated or is moving out of their parents pl
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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...
I also pay about $2200/month for me and my 3 kids but I live in a 6000 sqft house with a 4 car garage on 4 acres with a private stocked 4 acre lake in the backyard.
Oh, I'm also only about 10 minutes away from 2 major hospitals, an airport, and several excellent colleges including a top college football team.
Will there be a cafeteria and meal plan? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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Yeah, I'm a house-dweller, but I'd love a community kitchen that served healthy meals to be nearby. While in the UK, in a town you're never really very far from a pub that serves food, it's all too a la carte to be regarded as inexpensive.
Dorm? More like a frat/sorority house (Score:2)
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".
Ok for a year or two post-graduation (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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.
Bingo. That's what this really is about. Building these units will create yet another excuse for employers to not pay salaries high enough for workers to really be able to afford local housing, or for a legal confrontation over building permits (being denied in areas that are short on housing to allow existing property owners to gouge renters). This way, when people complain they can point to these new common arrangements and say "there's an affordable living situation right there -- you guys are just being
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The OP described 300 square foot units with a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living are, surrounding a shared living area with additional amenities. So, each resident would have their own private space.
This is actually more than some families (2 parents plus 1 or 2 kids - or 1 parent plus 2 or 3 kids) are able to afford.
Looking at the floor plan in TFA, the individual units are similar to some 2 room suites I've been in in hotels - except the hotel suites lacked a kitchen (having only a microwave and a mini
At least the price is right unlike college where t (Score:2)
At least the price is right unlike college where they cost more then renting ON YOUR OWN for not even full year round.
What happened to diversity? (Score:4, Insightful)
Highly Curated?!? (Score:2)
Not new -- Co-ops have existed forever (Score:3)
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Whatever happened to roomates? (Score:2)
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?
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Um... (Score:2)
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.
Hmm.... Guess there's a place for this .... (Score:2)
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, b
Community (Score:2)
assisted living... yes (Score:2)
like seniors apartments. Different amenities, but those can change as the overgrown children age
One Step Closer to Manna (Score:3)
The concept sounds similar to the terrafoam welfare dorms from Marshall Brain's Manna:
http://marshallbrain.com/manna... [marshallbrain.com]
At least this building would have individual bathrooms, and the building's small enough that there are windows for everyone...
Why it Works in College (Score:3)
It's all about the price (Score:3)
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, ...
everyone is a broke as motherfucker (Score:3)
in the future, everyone is broke so we have to huddle together in ghettos known as dormitories
Re:Truly. (Score:5, Funny)
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And then pay off their student loans.
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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...
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Peer Pressure and Social Pressure can be powerful, powerful pushers when you're below 20.
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Re:Truly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, nobody but their peers, parents, teachers, high-school guidance counselors, college financial aid office, and the Federal government.
Make your own job (Score:2)
Why can't they create their own jobs by finding what people want, making it, and selling it to them?
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Why can't they create their own jobs by finding what people want, making it, and selling it to them?
That appears to be exactly what Troy Evans, real estate developer, is doing.
Re:Make your own job (Score:5, Informative)
Because nobody has money that they could sell to? That's the whole reason the economy is in the dump it is.
Just people wanting something doesn't sell jack. If you want to sell, the demand side needs money.
Re:Truly. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Truly. (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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I think my father, grand father, great grand father and every generation before him had the exact same opinion...
GIMME GIMME GIMME (Score:2)
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
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Re:GIMME GIMME GIMME (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you asked to be born, I haven't.
As a parent myself, I expect NOTHING from my children in terms of help. Not now, not ever. They don't have to do shit for me. They have to grow, develop, live a happy life and I won't take it against them if they leave me to rot in a ditch when they won't need me anymore. I'd just go quietly into the night.
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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.
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Re:Truly. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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I didn't have a bad time back in my college dorms... once I got my own dorm room and didn't have to deal with roommates. That said, I wouldn't want to go back to dorm life. Once you're married with two kids and live in a house, dorm life tends to cease as a social option.
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Obligatory xkcd. [xkcd.com]
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! [coinbrawl.com]
Some people do need occupational therapy (Score:2)
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.
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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.
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Top 3 priorities: location, location, location (Score:2)
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.
Re:Fuck off. (Score:5, Funny)
>> 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.
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>> 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 art
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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 practical
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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
Re:Agenda 21 at it's finest. (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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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
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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.
Offtopic? (Score:2)
How is the implementation of the very things spelled out in the paper of Agenda 21 off topic?
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If it was zoned out of existence (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Look at the plan in the linked article. The 300 square feet is the private living area, which is like a mini-apartment, but there's also a larger shared area with a big kitchen, living room, etc.
For a shared living situation it's actually pretty nice. The work equivalent is like having a small office with your own fridge (so people don't still your lunch) AND an open space area with an espresso machine and bean bags and people wearing wool caps.
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I like my lunch stilled.
Re:Noise? (Score:5, Funny)
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.