Related Papers
Tiny house, big impact?' : an investigation into the 'rise' of the Tiny Home Lifestyle (THL) in the United States
2019 •
Megan Carras
The burst of the housing bubble in the United States ignited political and economic shockwaves, bringing global financial markets to the brink of collapse and kick-starting the Great Recession. This devastating crisis was the result of irresponsible housing practices and policy interventions rooted in the contemporary neoliberal mentality of rule that encouraged homeownership and failed to regulate high-risk lending (Aalbers, 2015). The Tiny Home Lifestyle (THL) has gained popularity amidst this contemporary era of housing instability, and offers a small, more affordable, and often aesthetically appealing version of a traditional American home. Despite growing awareness around the THL, it has been neglected as the subject of rigorous academic study. Therefore, the primary aim of this thesis was to explore and explain the Tiny Home Lifestyle (THL) in the United States. This alternative, small-living housing option was positioned amidst the traditional housing market, debt encumbrance...
Morgan State University School of Architecture and Planning
Tiny Houses and the Black Experience in Baltimore
2020 •
Justin Fair
Baltimore’s contemporary housing culture is the result of decades of discriminatory housing practices. Decades later from those insidious roots, residents are rightfully skeptical of innovative and alternative concepts when traditional solutions have repeatedly failed at paradigm shift. Proposals must then hold specific regard to the very-human, emotional effects that racism plays in setting structural expectations; both literally and institutionally. To the former expectation, an account of the traditional and innovative building types with an account of past successes and failures by local government can regain public confidence. Yet only if an alternative proposal offers a pragmatic, financially achievable and proven scope. But to the latter institutional expectation, the public feels amiss but does not know why. Like a patient who cries to be healed but watches as their doctor cannot get the serum just right, Baltimore residents are used to illness spreading; more rowhomes being abandoned than being rebuilt. Yet residents expect the standard formula to somehow net a body-wide cure when the pain’s cause is layered, requires multiple visits, and must be accompanied by the faith of optimism to prevent nihilism. In Baltimore City, market values are painfully askew yet residents expect business as usual to net a magic solution; whilst furthermore, actively disbelieving that any other route could reasonably address the problem. Among the many building types available to supplement an affordable housing inventory, “tiny houses” – often standalone¬ foundation-based dwellings of an especially small footprint, often less than 400 square feet– may be an increasingly attractive option. With an emphasis on Baltimore’s Black (African-American) population, what follows summarizes historical concerns, identifies groups for which “tiny houses” are an appropriate housing solution, and documents neighborhood indicators for or against their application. Based upon a survey of recent literature and a compilation of local questionnaires, this research will review cultural attitudes towards “tiny houses.” Recommendations about how they may be reintroduced successfully into Baltimore’s housing market will also be accompanied by proposed changes to legislation recently under consideration by the City Council. Whereas foundation-based homes, alley rowhomes, carriage houses, and marinas, are already permitted, their homeowners’ values are not well communicated. These recommendations will provide verbal outreach messaging as well as land use and landscape strategies that planners and developers can use to address contemporary residents’ positive and negative preconceptions. Lastly, this research is a preliminary effort to provide such a guide, as well as to document the evolving cultural and historical framework within which “tiny houses” are contributing to a more robust and equitable housing market in Baltimore, Maryland.
Exploring the need for tiny houses in urban cities
2021 •
Lenore Pearson
Rhetoric Society Quarterly
The Rhetorical Resistance of Tiny Homes: Downsizing Neoliberal Capitalism
2019 •
Crystal Colombini
Asking how post-crisis countercultural formations compose new means of resisting an unjust economic order, this essay centers the tiny homes movement, which takes the financialization and commodification of housing as a warrant for radically downsized dwellings. As I argue, the campaign to displace (from) big homes and emplace tiny homes relies on coordinating rhetorical modalities: the parrhēsiastic case against dominant but flawed materializations of “good living” and the eudaimonic envisioning of an alternative “good living” less beholden to capital. I conclude by reviewing both problematics and possibilities that emerge from this inventive play for social and economic change.
Area
“GET SMALLER”? Emerging geographies of micro‐living
2020 •
Ella Harris
Cities across the world are in the grip of an intensifying housing crisis, in which access to affordable, secure, and appropriate housing is increasingly inaccessible for the majority. There is rising pressure on stakeholders to find solutions but, simultaneously, persistent opposition to housing models that contest the neoliberal logics which prioritise housing's financialisation. In this context, many proposed and developed “solutions” have focused on how housing can – in the words of one entry to an architectural competition – “GET SMALLER.” Termed “micro‐living,” a trend is emerging for housing models that shrink living spaces, either by providing self‐contained units at below minimum space standards or by offering “co‐living” tenancies in small private rooms with access to shared communal spaces. Presented as innovative and aspirational, micro‐living distinguishes itself from unequivocally problematic small housing, such as Hong Kong's “coffin homes” or the UK's “be...
Small Houses, Big Community: Tiny Housers' Desire for More Cohesive and Collaborative Communities
Social Sciences Journal Office
Past research on the tiny house movement has primarily focused on understanding the individual motivations behind adopting the tiny house lifestyle. While some studies have suggested that tiny housers do entertain an interest in community, no systematic research exists that examines the actual complexities of this phenomenon. To make first inroads into this body of literature, twenty-four community-oriented tiny housers were interviewed about their ideal community. Interview questions ranged from definitions of community to specific ideas of the nature of community characteristics. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded in NVivo 12.0. Four main themes and eleven subthemes emerged from the qualitative content analysis. Select themes were then subjected to a subsequent quantification analysis in order to refine and deepen the theoretical understanding. The findings of this exploratory study suggest that a majority of tiny housers desire to be part of more cohesive and collaborative communities. While stressing the importance of community, tiny housers also expressed concerns over privacy. To explain the findings, the paper offers a set of arguments situated in the broader socio-cultural texture of our time.
Honours Thesis
ADJUSTING LANGUAGE AROUND THE CONCEPT OF SMALL LIVING SPACES: An Auto-ethnographic Perspective
2020 •
Karin T . Manser Raber
The concepts of paring-down, space and organization are explored in this paper through a phenomenological auto-ethnography within the context of Arnold van Gennep's three stages of liminality from Rites of Passage, 1960, The theory of Arnold van Gennep and Michel Foucault assist in exploring the liminality experience of selling a home and down-sizing to small living space. The linguistic insight of Penelope Eckert outline how variation can impact social identity. And the mythology of James Paul Gee explain the
Animal Crossing Special Issue
Tom Nook, Capitalist or Comrade?
Emma Vossen
Many millennial Animal Crossing players will experience the joy of paying off their beautiful three-floor in-game home only to have that joy cut short by the crushing realization that they may never experience homeownership in real life. Who do we then take that anger and disappointment out on? The capitalists with a stranglehold on the housing market? The governments and companies holding our lives hostage for student loan debt? Our landlords who take most of our income each month so we can keep a roof over our heads? Our bosses who are criminally underpaying us for our labour? Or is it a fictional racoon? Arguments about the ethics of Animal Crossing’s non-playable character Tom Nook are inescapable in online discussions about the Animal Crossing series. These discussions generally have two sides: either Tom Nook is a capitalistic villain who exploits the player’s labour for housing, or he is a benevolent landowner who helps the player out in hard times. Vossen first sets the stag...
A STUDY OF MULTIFUNCTIONAL SPACE
Almas Shaikh
Mobile Home on the Range: Manufacturing Ruin and Respect in an American Zone of Abandonment
2018 •
Allison Formanack
