A century ago these would have been called tenement houses, but now we did a hip and cool Millennial rebrand: micro-apartments! The article spins this nicely:
The 180-square-foot (17-square-meter) room is filled with an air mattress where she, her partner and their children, ages 2 and 4, sleep. It’s also where they play or watch TV. At mealtimes, it becomes their dining room.
Boarding houses that rented single rooms to low-income, blue-collar or temporary workers were prevalent across the U.S. in the early 1900s. Known as single room occupancy units, or SROs, they started to disappear in the postwar years amid urban renewal efforts and a focus on suburban single-family housing.
Now the concept is reappearing — with the trendy name of “micro-apartment” and aimed at a much broader array of residents — as cities buffeted by surging homelessness struggle to make housing more affordable.
Wow look at all this urbanist progress!
Late soviet intelligentsia: “STUPID evil sovok building tiny 33 m2 apartments! They are too tiny! Unlivable! Not like Blessed America, where everybody lives in spacious, comfortable suburban houses!”
Modern day: “Actually 33 m is too much, 15 would be just fine. Even 3 square meters could be alright!”
In USSR there was an actual housing shortage esp after ww2
In the US there are plenty of homes but no one can afford it because market rationing ensures only rich can afford the same.
Difference between the two…
One had huge swaths of the nation destroyed by war.
The other has huge swaths of the nation owned by landlords.
Take the glorious Hong Kong for example! The only place in China that was blessed by Western Democracy ™