No need for a design competition. They've had these for well over a century in the South and they're called "shotgun shacks". I think they look pretty cool, too.
I have an ice fishing shanty, and could sublet the basement...
"800-square-foot house..."
They can kiss my skinny posterior. I grew up in a 900 sq ft house because my father banked every nickel he made, not because we were broke. That's 2 - 180 pounders, a 200 pounder, and my mother, who barely avoided getting crushed.
I WILL NOT live that way again unless I have to. I know that's all some can afford, but if you can afford larger and want it, see my first line as to my attitude to government mandated teensy houses. Commies.
Sustainability?
Even Patrick Moore admits that we have forests that are dying from too many trees. Let's cut some of them into lumber and build some houses that are large enough not to cause a divorcedue to claustrophobia.
No need for a design competition. They've had these for well over a century in the South and they're called "shotgun shacks". I think they look pretty cool, too.
After the author (and other enlightened progressives like her) live in this house for 5 years or longer, then perhaps I'd think about it.
Once again, the know-better-than-the-rest-of-us liberals are telling us how WE should live, while they (probably) continue to live in their mansions.
I could buy more than that small house with the same amount of money he forked out for land and construction. And, it wouldn't be in someone's backyard! Oy.
I like small houses but there is always the problem of 'where do you put your stuff'? Don't say 'just have LESS stuff', girls NEED stuff, lots of stuff. So the solution is, have a small house but have HUGE closets! See how simple that was? ;9)
It's amazing how condescending the 'urban planning' people can be. If they want to live in tiny houses within spitting distance of their neighbors, and feel morally superior about it, that's fine for them. I prefer to have at least 40' between my house and my neighbors, and room inside the house to move around.
WA State Ping...JFK
Absent government influence, I believe that the size of homes being constructed would closely match the desires of the buying public. It seems to me that many developments, either through government requirements or neighborhood covenants, tend to set minimum house size standards. Now we have governments seeking ways to push smaller house construction instead. Why don't these controlling idiots just let the market determine house size?
They used to be called starter homes.