Is co-living just another bubble?

The latest Co-living summit in Paris in September 2018, expended on the current complexity of the real estate market. Participants reviewed several benefits that co-living communities provide to face those challenges but also raised some important concerns: who is co-living really for?

As of now, most of the co-living industry cater to a certain profile — Millennials. The average co-liver is aged 31, single, either wealthy / nomadic / entrepreneurial and probably in transition period. Most co-livers today don’t stay more than a year in their rental room and find other solutions when their life circumstances change.

If co-living is set to solve real urban and societal problems and not just be a passing trend, how can it adapt itself to a bigger range of dwellers?

In a recent survey made by New York-based designers Anton Repponen and Irene Pereyra, participants were asked ‘How would you live your life in the year 2030?’

More than 90% of the responses indicated that people do want to share their living space with others, but to be more specific, they would prefer to share with a certain ‘easy’ profile: childless couples, single women and single men in that order.

As we keep on closing ourselves in echo-chambers digitally, curated communities such as co-living spaces might become the next step in our ‘bubble economy’, potentially leaving us with more problems than solutions.

If only the few can afford living in communal living as such, will this development really change the housing market?
Will co-living break out of the millennial-cage? Will it turn into a true transformational force?

Berlin, London, New York and San Francisco are among the most exciting global cities of our age, where the engines of innovation work forcefully and attract more and more talents. Those are cities that bring together the most diverse communities from all over the spectrum.

Rubbing against each others, these different groups create friction who make those cities the creative places they are.
When millenials hang with baby boomers, it puts things in perspective for both sides. When immigrants meet natives, it sparks conflicts but also empathy.
When people travel and learn about other cultures — they become better people.
So why not living all together in one house?

When I was a child, one of the first children books I have read was “Room for rent” by the famous children author Leah Goldberg. The plot described one building inhabited by different animals. The animals residing consisted of a variety of colorful characters which, gently said, required quite a lot of space…

When Sir Reginald Mouse disappears from his apartment, the neighbors in the building advertise his room for rent. One prospective renter after another comes to see the apartment but finds fault with one or another of the neighbors. The hardworking Ant finds the Hen lazy, the Rabbit criticizes the Cuckoo for abandoning her young, the Pig finds the Cat beneath him because of her color (and is roundly chased out by the neighbors for his racism), and the Nightingale thinks the Squirrel just a noisemaker. At last the Dove arrives, bringing with her an eye for the good and restoring an atmosphere of peace.

The dove in the story was not seeking a bubble or similar doves who will be more comfortable to digest. She wanted to step out of her comfort zone and experience something different from what she already knew. She knew what we discover today, that diversity is a bliss.

When push comes to shove, regardless to what you think when it comes to your own needs, aren’t we have a moral responsibility to live and support those that were slipped out to the edges of society? Can we really ignore the elders, homeless or the mentally ill and lock them in “shelters” out of our sight? Can we displace the poor to the distant suburbs of our city and exclude those disadvantaged communities from reaching the good services of our cities?

A heterogeneous and diverse mix of people is far more exciting long-term, isn’t it? An echo-chamber of like-minded might seem attractive — but as someone said “one particular hell is boredom”. Co-living spaces will eventually need to solve this crux by curating both cohesive and diverse communities. To become the transformation force it could be.