Can microvillages make housing better for a new generation?

Can microvillages make housing better for a new generation? | Trish Becker-Hafnor | Chase Street Commons

More than half of all baby boomers owned homes by age 30. For Gen Xers, that number dwindled to 48%, and for millennials, it’s 42%.

A lack of affordable housing is a problem, and the problem is more and more pronounced for each subsequent generation. And for those millennials who do end up getting their suburban, stereotypical American Dream home, they can find it is not always what they envisioned — like they needed to create their own Dream.

That’s why one millenial, Trish Becker-Hafnor, created Chase Street Commons, located in Denver, Colorado.

Becker-Hafnor’s solution is coliving. Instead of single-family homes, cohousing families reside in apartments or condos (often called cohousing developments) or planned communities specifically designed to foster community. What Becker-Hafnor’s American Dream looks like is a life filled with friendship, purpose, personal growth and a feeling of belonging.

This video was created in partnership with Million Stories Media.

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Read more of our stories on alternative housing:
3D printed homes for the homeless
“Agrihood” puts a farm in the center of Silicon Valley housing
Startup is turning abandoned houses into affordable homes

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[freethink]

What's your ideal kind of living situation?

[BenShutUp]

Yes yes and yes. Huge emphasis on inter-generational residents. Having old folks around is so helpful for life.

[LeahandLevi]

This is a very interesting idea that I think a lot of people are looking for today. This video was really well made.

[chrisklugh]

This is a must thing. We are social creatures. We live in Clans, and groups. Not isolated as we are now. We need to bring back The Village in our cities. Community is everything, there is nothing otherwise.

[vntwelve]

This is neat! I do think it’s really important to mention that situations like this have existed in communities of color in the west, and indigenous communities around the world, for a long time.

[TheThomaTube]

I actually live in Co-Housing in Ottawa, Canada. I grew up with a large shared back yard near downtown with shared meals 2 times a week and a strong sense of community. We go camping and do ski trips with our neighbors. If I am missing an egg for a recipe, I can just go knock next door. It's been such a privilege to raise my child in this context as well. Thanks @freethink for sharing this.
Also, Trish is incredibly beautiful

[mauriciogerhardt]

Community is great until there are people who think differently: why can't I put a chair on the lawn? If people can put chair on the lawn, why can't I put a table? If people can put a table, why can't I put my extra boxes on the lawn. Etc.

[thatguy]

Wait until they get a karen. the entire model will break down

[DeathToMockingBirds]

This model needs to be promoted, supported, especially federally. I'd love to see this approach as default for social housing and new development projects, ideally within a national work program to create housing to also fix this affordability crysis.

[cob]

My wife's family in the Philippines has this exact situation going on. Her grandparents owned a house with a giant yard, and then when they died, he uncles built homes inside, paved the courtyard (yuck), and even invited some neighbours to move onto the land. They have built a communal pool, share vehicles, run a small cafe out of the property, and even have a giant treehouse with rope bridges going to the different rooftops

[devbowman]

So basically you’re opting to live in an apartment complex with a community garden. Yay. If that works for you, then great. Reinvent the wheel and slap a millennial label on it. But why couldn’t you have done that in a suburban neighborhood? Get the heck outside your white picket fence and go knock on a door. Have a block party. Start a community garden, a book share, a tool share etc etc. And when are we going to sunset ‘Hack’?!

[zerubiszeus]

They're trying so hard to be different, rather than be efficient & helpful. People just want their own space, but rent is insanely high. Apartments kind of mitigate this & add rec rooms if they're fancy, but what if we took that further?

[anderssvensk]

I like the idea but it's not for everyone. I've asperger syndrome together with ADHD, and to live so close to others is a nightmare for me. But I can understand the thoughts behind it.
I avoid the big cities and densely populated areas, and try to live close to nature as possible. For me a tiny house is perfect.

[Iquey]

I love this. Culdesacs and multifamily lots with common outdoors and private indoors is really nice. It's what the older middle class and working class mixed income suburbs used to have, implicity, rather than encoded through zoning or activism related progress as a defense against out if control commodification and speculatiom mc mansion-ifying all property out of reach.

[TyroneKalu]

So basically the equivalent of a nicer housing project.

[Interopader]

Wait. So you have to buy the building, but you don't own the land. So really you're just renting and having to pay for the building. This is brilliant scheme by the bank providing this. Might I also assume it's the cheapest construction materials, and the price of the land will only go up. What is the impact of all your neighbors also not owning their land even if you do? Yikes.

[meshachadams]

These communities are intentional. People sign up for this if you don’t want to join you don’t have too.

[klekaelly]

I am 22 and don't even want to think about a mortgage payment or rent. I really don't require a lot of space. I'm not materialistic at all. For me, I think the move would be to buy some land in a promising location and build a portable tiny house on it. That is the real American dream. Doing what suits your own needs, and not necessarily what society says you should idealize.

[cognitive.]

Lol, sorry for my comment, but... It's really funny, because in Soviet Russia there was a phenomenon called "kommunalka", which is very very very similar to micro villages. The difference only that "kommunalkas" were in big cities, but it had same idea of sharing common space :D

To be honest, in Russia, everyone who lives in these "kommunalkas" wants to leave it or already left it, because it's really hard to share common space with others.

I understand, that in U.S. there is a different situation with quality of life comparing to USSR or modern Russia. But it's really hard to believe that idea of microvillages will be a best solution for housing problem :)

[alexrivera]

This sounds like a HOA community with a coat of paint.