Apart-Meant Living
Modern apartments bring us together yet keep us apart.
NYC apartments are famously cramped. I knew this before I began my search for a three-bed in Brooklyn this summer — I had no lofty hopes of finding a spacious loft. But as I viewed a dozen apartments for me and my two future roommates, I noticed a peculiar trend in newer developments: disproportionately small common areas.
My roommates and I had a low budget, so we didn’t expect our future home to have ample space for entertaining. But even house-hunters at the bottom of the market hope for a common area that comfortably fits all the residents. We wanted to accomplish daily activities — like grabbing leftovers from the fridge, tying our sneakers, and raising our elbows to sneeze — without collision. We wanted to cook together without having to perform deft stunts the likes of which Simone Biles may alone be capable.
These common areas often contained a strip of cabinets posing as a “kitchen,” dressed up with a fridge, sink, and stove. They had one square foot of counter space, did double duty as the apartment’s entryway, and were the locus of traffic flow. You might think you were opening the fridge for ingredients and accidentally open the front door — Takeout it is, I guess.
Also on offer in these modern apartments were tiny living spaces that forced the choice between a dining table and a couch: Would we be lounging or lunching this year?
At one address, previous tenants had settled on a small couch and no table. I figured they were either eating meals on this sofa or in their bedrooms. And as I imagined routinely retreating to my room to munch, I felt lonely, grimy, and even slightly naughty: Surely some adult had told kid-me it was bad manners to eat in your room.
As children we might have faced the punishment of being sent off to our rooms without dinner. Could we now worry about getting sent off to our rooms with dinner?
This is Apart-Meant Living.
My intuition is that these listings weren’t just altogether small; instead, it seems common spaces are shrinking by design. New apartments like these are apparently designed for roommates (they feature multiple similar bedrooms) but also for living apart from one’s roommates (they feature scant shared space). This is apart-meant living.
These apartments starkly contrast roomy Upper West Side homes like those you see in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which have communal space in abundance: grand living rooms, elegant dining rooms, and sunny kitchens. Those places are built for families (i.e. people who are presumed to spend time together), whereas the newer developments are, strikingly, not.
It’s not surprising that more housing would be built for roommates instead of families.
We are, on average, marrying and starting families later in life — if at all. It follows that there would be less demand for spaces suited to close-knit nuclear groups. As we delay and forgo family formation, maybe developers are deprioritizing designs that would accommodate families. Meanwhile, with rising living costs and stagnating salaries, fewer 20-to-30-something adults can afford to live alone. As a result, cohabitation has become status quo, and roommate-ing is on the rise.
But it is worrisome that less real estate seems created for community.
While most of us can happily live without the amount of room that the stately, pricey UWS apartments provide, we do need some form of common area. We should be concerned that fewer listings seem set up for family life — not because we all ought to get wed, fill our rooms with babies, and therefore need rooms big enough to do so, but because people need opportunities for togetherness, regardless of whether they share a last name.
Our living spaces should encourage us to interact — not isolate. This slimming and trimming is happening in a moment of well-documented and widespread loneliness, and the tiny common spaces likely aggravate the issue. I’m an introvert who gets plenty of alone time as is; I don’t need to be coaxed into greater hermit-y habits.
In the age of work from home (i.e. work from bedroom), we would benefit even more from separate and sizeable common spaces where we can relax, cook, eat, and see other humans. When our professional socializing opportunities have evaporated into the cloud, we could use opportunities to socialize at home.
I value the ritual of leaving my laptop at my desk, moving to a different space to eat my lunch, and then returning to my bedroom for work. Even if I don’t see anyone outside my room, I enjoy the experience of exiting my personal nook and engaging with a shared environment.
Of course, it’s possible to experience community outside the home. It could be argued that smaller living spaces will push us out to libraries, parks, theaters, and gyms — into those elusive “third spaces.” This is a quaint thought, but it’s a hard one to believe in a moment when we’re also signing petitions to keep our neighborhood libraries open.
In the end, I was able to find an apartment with ample living space for me and my roommates. Our three-bed is fantastically airy — its hallway wide, ceilings high, and windows abundant. This apartment, built long enough ago to suit a former generation’s lifestyle, encourages togetherness. But sadly, many no longer do.
