#SharedLiving How We Live & The Future of Cities
What is shared living? Share a living space with people who have common ideas, ambitions, and interests. In a high-tech, low-touch world, the shared-living movement is helping to create great connections and opportunities amid the hustle and grind of city living.
Is this the future of how we live in cities?
Living in boxes, in many cases alone. Constricted by long-term leases or leveraged mortgages. Is this the future we want to see?
By 2050, more than 2/3 of the world’s population will live in cities. At that point, the global population is expected to be 9.7bn, meaning that roughly 6.5bn people will live in cities.
“Urbanisation is happening faster than at anytime in human history.”
As people move into cities en masse, what do researchers think is going to be the #1 cause of death in the future?
By 2030, just over 10 years from now, it’s commonly predicted that depression will be the leading cause of morbidity. (The Urban Developer)
“We need to start thinking outside of the box, literally”
That’s why we need to start thinking outside of the box, literally, and coming up with radical, innovative solutions to the future of housing in cities.
The current co-living movement has been labelled by some as the Silicon Valley version of roommates;
“Now, to be fair, co-living isn’t just living with a bunch of roommates. No, it’s rich millennials living with a bunch of roommates in a fancy building in a recently gentrified part of town.” The Guardian
However, if you can look past the ‘millennial roommates in gentrified parts of the city’, in theory, co-living offers a radically different future of how we live together in cities.
The Collective, WeLive and other players have kickstarted the the co-living trend by focusing on communal space and community living in big cities. This is clearly a big need for ‘millennials’ who can often barely afford to live in the cities in which they grew up or are working in. (CBC)
“These developments are not the future of co-living”
But these developments are not the future of co-living. These developments are often costly and fail to celebrate the culture and community that already exists in these cities.
The future of co-living is fusion, a mix of old and new:
- Drawing on the wisdom of the past, of community and connection, and facilitating its dissemination through new, tech enhanced methods
- Younger and older people living together in the same space
- A combination of old, existing space in megalopolis cities, and new, custom-built space in innovation hubs and cluster areas
All of this is based around the ideology of how people want to live and how they have always wanted to live. It mixes this with the technology that allows us to accommodate the new challenges we face now that we didn’t in the past and to live in “smarter cities”.
“How people want to live and how they have always wanted to live”
- In tribes of people with common values and ideas
- In homes where meals can be shared and savoured among others
- In vibrant, multi-use areas of the city
While we don’t know exactly what the future of living is, we certainly know what it is not.
At RoomForTea we’re building the future of living with our communities. Co-living should be affordable and accessible. It should celebrate the community and provide shared new experiences.
