Diversity in Housing
We need more housing. Populations in most places aren't going down, as kids grow up and want to move out and have their own kids, who will eventually do the same. But at the same time, we're seeing dynamics and priorities shift. Some people don't want to have kids. Some people are in polyamorous relationships, and they may want to live together. Some people have a lot of kids, or few kids. Some families want to live together, too. While we absolutely should be building the most housing for the most popular living situations, we should also consider other peoples' (ideal) living situations too.
Welcome back to Futurism, a gemlog that talks about planning for the future, with the tag "solarpunk" guiding it on its adventure.
The presidential election
I like Kamala Harris's plans for solving the housing crisis. I'm not certain at all that I think she'll actually (be able to) do them, though, but I am certain Donald Trump will execute his plans, because he has a reputation of doing things like that. Trump's plan, to start with, really only addresses the demand side: by deporting, murdering, and maybe imprisoning a LOT of people (immigrants, mostly, and yes both legal and "illegal"; as well as of course queer people and anyone else he doesn't like).
Harris' plan targets both supply and demand! The supply side is addressed by building more housing and providing first-time homebuyers basically a discount. (The first-time part, I think, would help fight sellers abusing it, although it is definitely imperfect.) The demand side is addressed by "penaliz[ing] firms that hoard available homes to drive up prices for local homebuyers" such as house-flippers and landlords.
I think Trump said he wanted to build more housing on federal lands, but um. That's not where housing is needed. And it's protected for a reason.
It's also really rich of the Vice President to talk big about that kind of thing because, how are you gonna do it? Executive orders? Nagging Congress about it (which doesn't do a goddamn thing)? Also why isn't Biden doing any of this, he is still the sitting President, after all!
Anyway, there's a lot more than just the current election cycle to talk about.
Polyamorous
[Only tangentially related to housing: I had thought up a mechanism by which to repurpose "civil unions" as something between a legal marriage and a company or non-profit, but where every member has equal footing for legal stuff, the union itself can own property, you get to decide how many signatures you need for certain things like opening a bank account or credit card under the union or selling union property, you can give it a name which only has to be unique per address... and traditional marriages would just be a special "preset" of a civil union.]
If you're in a nesting polycule or communal/social living is your cup of tea, I had thought up a general housing idea which probably exists somewhere: you get a bunch of shared common spaces, like a big living room, TV room, etc, but multiple kitchens and laundry spaces. Then you also have a lot of bedrooms, which might be one per person even if they don't sleep in those rooms.
If I ended up in a relationship/marriage type situation, it would probably be monogamous, but I think I'd still like to have two bedrooms, so we each have our own space to decorate and furnish as we wish and then we can kinda take turns sleeping in the other's room or something. Plus, instead of sleeping on the couch, I still have a bed.
The two-kitchens, two-laundry-rooms, one-big-living-room, lotsa-bedrooms idea would probably work best with two or three stories in the house, so it would have to be a free-standing house because apartment units generally don't have two floors (although, I suppose they could).
Mixed use!
I'm a big fan of mixed use buildings! First-floor-retail and upper-floor-residential is such an obvious setup to me that I'm surprised I don't see it being built anymore. And it's probably because the lower floors of apartments don't like the noise the retail spaces generate, which isn't a problem in much of Europe since their buildings aren't thin and hollow like ours are.
We could absolutely have more complex setups, too, like: first floor retail, second and third floor apartments, fourth and fifth floor offices, and sixth and up floor apartments again (most of them will probably go up to 7, but you probably won't see more than 10).
I also think that underground storage lockers underneath apartment buildings would be a good idea too. They could also serve as storm shelters for tornadoes.
The only thing I think a (penthouse) clubhouse would be truly beneficial for in an apartment building is as a storm shelter for flooding.
Apartment buildings should also be mandated to have a ramp to access higher floors. This would be a great alternative to waiting for someone to come and rescue you if you're a wheelchair user on a higher floor and need to escape a building fire, but also if you own a bike and want to park it inside your apartment.
Rooftop Parks
Something else they could do, and some places have done, is turn apartment block rooftops into small parks for their residents to hang out in. You can even put trees and real grass up there! It could be an event space, much like a clubhouse, but you could maybe put a playground up there too, provided there's enough fencing to stop kids from flying off the swing and over the edge of the roof.
It would be great to have a medium-sized playground, some picnic tables, some open space, some trees, and a little bit of solar-panel artifical shade too. If you want, you can even try to install some vending machines there too. Ohh, that would be awesome.
Solar shades
Speaking of solar panels! One idea I had was to build balconies on some apartments, or you know, use ones that have already been built, and shade them with (maybe angle-adjustable) solar panels. The power from those would go into the building's shared batteries, which should be sectioned by sets of floors but still connected, and also to the grid. Excess power if the battery is full is sold to the grid.
Separating the batteries by floor is important for disaster reasons. If a part of the building burns down, other parts should still (be able to) have power. If the first few floors are flooded, the upper floors should not lose power. And quite the same for tornadoes: if the top of the building somehow gets torn off, the bottom floors should not need to lose power. Plus, it builds redundancy anyway in case of sabotage, electrical faults, battery fires, or anything else.
There should also be solar panels on the roof, maybe around the top edges of the building. Maybe you can shade a rooftop playground with them, and have some solar panel shaded picnic tables (although you should also have some under trees or under sun).
Balconies should not be directly above or below one on an adjacent floor. So they should alternate. It might not be a bad idea to make sure there's a balcony's length of balcony between balconies on the same floor, too.
Depending on how much room they're allowed to use, you could have a solar panel shading that has another panel that can move down and move the first one over, kinda like a garage door, making an even longer shade. The top/back one would be positioned so that it too is always facing outwards, where the sun can reliably hit it.
Image: An extremely crude drawing to show you what I'm thinking with that one.
Personally, I'd like a solar-panel shaded balcony with enough room to put some lawn chairs and a little table on it.
The Rouxls
Image: Rouxls Kaard saying "The Rouxls (pronounced Rules) art Simple!"
For apartments, you should be able to decorate your wall in the hallway. The only rules about it should be stuff like, you can't put obscene stuff there, you can't have anything stick out where people could get caught on it, no bright or flashing lights (Christmas string lights set to still or a slow setting should be fine), stuff like that.
You should also be able to paint inside. The landlord is gonna paint it all over when you move out anyway ("the landlord treatment"). You could probably wallpaper but good luck hanging anything from then on; Command strips don't stay on wallpaper (ask me how I know).
If you have a balcony, you should be allowed to hang things from it, probably down to a certain distance, and it has to be hung from the top of the handrail. Shaded balconies should have a hanging bar from which to hang things as well, particularly hanging plants.
I think some of these things are generally allowed but the rules should be a little more relaxed. Maybe I'm just an idiot and this is how things are already (I'm specifically talking about in the renting world), because I haven't been able to rent yet.
And of course, HOAs are overbearing and totally unnecessary. They should not be able to demand membership or compliance. More purple houses. Less Millenial Graige.
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