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Showing posts from June, 2015

An Open Letter to the Tiny House Movement

Dear Proponents of Tiny Houses , First off, I respect what you're trying to do here . Today's average American single-family houses are gigantic compared to houses only 40 years ago (and getting bigger)! Why are we wasting all this money, energy, time, and effort on giant homes? Let's return to smaller footprints, cheaper mortgages, fewer rooms to clean, less stuff to worry about, lower bills to pay, more time to spend with our families. However. I would like to point out that even the tiniest, cutest, most DIY-est tiny homes might not be the amazing panacea that you seem to think they are. (Not to mention that there are some hurdles to face even to build them in the first place.) Let me explain. I consider myself an urbanist, someone who's interested in cities and thinks that density is an important tool we have to make better places to live and work. Based on my studies in graduate school of housing density, the environmental impact of buildings,