Hi-Res Monitor

In my last year of university, I remember a dormmate asking how we were going to deal with living in normal places. Here we were living in a very social format, but in the real world, everyone is very private.

Just so you don't get the wrong idea, our residence floor was hardly a stereotypical university living space. It was fairly restrained and nerdy even by the standards of the University of Waterloo. But still, it's a very different situation: you have a private room (or at least, as private as you want it to be) and pretty much everything else is communal. Compare that to my current apartment, where I don't know most of my floormate's names, much less organized late-night StarCraft tournaments with them.

My answer at the time was to point out that I had read about an experimental building where people were housed in more public circumstances. You get your own apartment, but there are also nice lounge area outside to socialize with neighbours. I think it was in Vancouver (Big surprise.) I had the same worry about leaving the inclusive society of the university residence, and was a little scared of the lonely life of a single adult.

Today it's hard to believe I felt that way. When I imagine ideal accommodations, it's usually getting away from my neighbours, rather than getting closer to them. Maybe I've grown up, out maybe I've gotten used to a new paradigm. But I think it's a different reason: there's essentially two strategies for getting along with your neighbours: get friendly with them, or try to get away from them. Our residence was built on the first strategy, but most living circumstances in the western world are based on the latter.

But maybe things are changing. The Atlantic has an article about a company offering dorm-like accommodations to the general public. It's in Syracuse, New York (genuinely big surprise.)  The article mostly looks at it from an angle that the concept appeals primarily to millennials - before pointing out that they've had interest from all ages. So perhaps there is hope for a new way of living, and an appetite for it.