A True Professional Would Sleep In the Car

If you’re still interested in discussing the microhousing trend — and I will never get tired of discussing the microhousing trend — Malcolm Harris has a really interesting essay in Fusion called “Where should a good Millennial live?”

He cites recent stories about Millennials saving both money and time by living in trucks or vans outside outside of their offices, a topic we also covered earlier this year. Then Harris gets to the point:

The best place a millennial can take shelter, according to the media reaction, seems to be in a car near work. In both of these stories the main characters are, of course, homeless. It’s important that in both cases that the young men in question are not poor or desperate. In fact, they’re both employed and quite well-off. There are plenty of young homeless people, but no national news outlets are covering the clever ingenuity they use to survive. Instead, municipal ordinances against sleeping in cars are on the rise, up 119 percent between 2011 and 2014. Norris and Brandon both could afford conventional housing if they wanted to, they have simply thought better of it. A model millennial has to be both rich and homeless.

He notes the rise in microapartments and tiny house living, especially the units that are designed to travel with you, and asks why you only hear about “Millennials” embracing this lifestyle:

If we were really undergoing a social shift toward small, thrifty living, it would be manifesting at the top as well. But while the wealthy plot to ensure decades of low-density retirement life, the vision of millennials sleeping in the backs of cars ready to roll down the road as soon as they’re not needed or packed together in minimal-sized pods sounds more like a trap than an opportunity. We would have to be real suckers to fall for the old “Sleeping in your car is cool!” trick.

Read the whole thing. I agree with some of it, have a few questions about the rest — it’s not really only Millennials in microapartments, for example — but think it’s a great continuation of this discussion of microhousing, living close to the office to accommodate the endless workday, and gentrifying behaviors that are unavailable to people who, as Harris notes, are actually homeless.

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