gerv 

I just answered the new thread "What is your favorite part..." and realized my life has changed enormously in the last number of years. .

So what's going to happen over the next few years? I was looking at a year-end Grist list today and wondered what I would have thought about some of these.

1. ‘Micro-lofts’ are luxury shantytowns for hipsters.

2. The incandescent light bulb era is now officially over.

3. 2011 sets all-time record for tornadoes: 199 in one day

4. Nature is trying to reabsorb the exurbs

Some of the other articles would have shocked me in 2005. And, not only that, some of the things I need to do today would have shocked me in 2005. (Getting the trailer out for a grocery trip... for one thing.)

What is this world coming to?

Dahon.Steve

I was living in a studiio for years didn't have one of those fold down beds from a wall!! As someone said, those apartments start off cheap than go sky-high after 2-4 years. However, people are moving back into cities again or at least those that still offer good paying jobs.

Roody

The changes in my city are startling--especially considering that it's not only a sprawly Automobile Era city, bua also a major car manufacturing city.

Less than 10 years ago, there was no interest in improving conditions for non-car transportation. For example, the city got a big federal grant for construction of bike lanes along a certain road. There was a huge turnout against the bike lanes--on the grounds that they would slow traffic, especially for trucks that carried parts to a GM assembly plant. City Council bowed to public pressure and turned down the grant for bikelanes.

Today, public pressure goes the other way. That same road now has MORE miles of bike lanes than the earlier grant would have provided. In the depths of the recession, voters passed a millage increase for the public transit system. It lookis like there will be a BRT system on a major corridor within a few years. We also became one of the first cities to pass a Complete Streets Act via public election, rather than by a vote of the city council.

The biggest sssurprise for me was the way these and other changes came about. Finally, bike and new urban advocacy groups reached out to some unlikely bedfellows, such as business leaders, retailers, Chamber of Commerce, even GM and the UAW. TYhe point is that we need to attract young talented workers to the city, because that's what attracts the new companies we need to diversify our business sector. Studies have shown that the ain thing youn talented people are looking for is a "cool city." For them, that includes bicycles and buses, so that is what business is aiming for. It surprises me that a small handful of neighborhood activists and bike enthusiasts were able to initiate such big changes in such a short period of time.

Also, 10 years ago I never saw a fellow cyclist in January, now they are all over the place.

Smallwheels

I liked that tiny apartment. The price was a bit high, though Vancouver is supposedly more expensive to live in than New York City.

If I ever get around to moving into an RV that two-hundred-thirty-six square foot apartment will seem huge. My space will be about seven and a half by sixteen feet. That's only one-hundred-twenty square feet.

DX-MAN

Sorry -- maybe it's just because I'm a big guy, but 236sf just isn't enough; funny, though -- 440 would be palatial! (That's the size of my 2-car garage, that has not seen a car parked in it in the decade I've lived on this property, lol)

Since I have a blended/extended family, the 1700sf 4-br house on a 1/2-acre is sufficient; but that won't last forever, either, and I don't want to be here in another decade.

As long as my abode is bike-friendly, I can deal with the rest....

tony_merlino

I don't get the minimalism thing. I like having space. I play a bunch of musical instruments, and like having the space to keep them accessible. (A very true statement I heard once is that a guitar that's kept in it's case is a guitar that doesn't get played much. I keep my guitars, etc. out on stands so that I can pick them up whenever the mood strikes me.) I like having space for a piano. I like having the space to have some friends over to jam.

I like having a shop to do woodworking in, as well as to work on my bikes. For that matter, I like having storage for my bikes that requires only opening the garage door and riding out, without having to wrestle them out of some unwieldy rack or hook or cubby - I've done the carrying the bike up and down stairs thing in my last apartment, and it got old very fast.

I work from home, and have my kids with me half the time - I need office space that I can close off from them when they're home on vacation from school, so that I can call into meetings and they can live their lives without having to tiptoe around me. I like having the space to be able to put up a friend or family member who visits from out of town for a couple of days.

Bottom line is that tiny wouldn't do it for me. I don't demand sumptuous or luxurious (which is lucky for me, since I don't have it), but I like having comfortable furniture to sit on and a comfortable bed to sleep in. A multi-purpose torture instrument that folds down from the wall just wouldn't cut it. I've also done the futon on the floor thing, and that lost it's appeal after a year or so.

What's really nice about this is that I get the space to do all that stuff for less money than tiny costs nowadays. Nice, but it makes no sense at all. Fads rarely do, I guess.

I sometimes wonder if the new minimalism/tinyism craze is just a fad that will pass in a few years, or if it's a "sweet lemon" reaction to overpopulation, where we are trying to convince ourselves that, since we insist on breeding like rabbits, we should learn to love living like sardines. I also wonder why the green/carbon footprint folks don't attack the fundamental issue, which is that there are just too many of us, and our numbers are increasing exponentially. No matter how green we try to live, we're going to hit the limits of the earth to sustain even the cockroach colony life that's becoming fashionable among the hip if we don't get population under control - and that doesn't mean reducing growth, it means reducing population.

Artkansas 

In earlier times I believe they were called SROs and mostly for the indigent. I looked and they had 3 functions listed, awake and bathe, cook and eat, rest and relax. I noticed that there was no room for a fleet of bicycles, almost no counter space in the kitchen; the bookshelves and closet space are a joke. With the small sink, and small refrigerator, they aren't anticipating you cooking beyond heating water for coffee and warming microwavable plastic containers.

One of the prime uses my apartment has is as an office. That means books, papers, computers. I sure wouldn't want to have to clear everything up from my work space when I wanted to take a nap. And I sure don't want to give up the furniture that I've acquired over the years, like the antique chinese cabinets and adirondack style table that I got from my mother, or the japanese side tables from my grandmother.

I'm just too old for those. I had more furniture than those places allow when I was a teenager.

On the plus side though, I bet I could move into one carrying everything on my Bikes at Work trailer in one load.

Artkansas 

+1 Well phrased.

dynodonn 

I enjoyed my studio in my younger years, in the middle of town, was in the quiet part of the building, and my rent was very, very low with all utilities paid. Too bad my landlords were very elderly, making me decide after several years of living there in finding a more long term residence.

gerv 

The list also points to more changes than just cramped living conditions... but phenomena we are going to have to adapt to. Like the records numbers of tornadoes.

There are certainly more changes coming down the pipe, too. For one thing in the US we are seeing a generation of young people who are growing familiar with unemployment and low pay. I know it's more than the young, but I think the young are seeing more of this. It affects their transportation and housing choices certainly. But it also affects their mindset... goals and aspirations are undergoing radical change.

Artkansas 

And education has become so obscenely expensive. I don't know how we expect to keep up our technical advantages if young people can't afford to go to college. When I was young, the tuition for community college was so low that the student discount for movie tickets in a semester would more than pay for tuition. We've been investing all of our money in supporting for-profit prisons instead of education.

gerv 

This sounds bad, but like all terrible situations, there's got to be a silver lining. For one thing, it could help breed a generation that was a little more resilient and aware. It would help these people see the world outside the buffered cocoon of money and boundless opportunity. It could also lead to a generation who was able to stand up and demand changes... although I don't see that happening much.

wahoonc

Formal education...I have often questioned it's worth against the cost. I have a brother with multiple college degrees in a wide range of fields...still unemployed, in fact I cannot recall him ever holding down a full time job for more than a year or two. I don't have a college degree but have several certifications and am competent at quite a few other skills that were self taught but come in handy and make me money if I need them. I think too much emphasis is put on a piece of paper that proves little.

Aaron

Artkansas 

I'm not really thinking about education on the individual level. If we don't have people well educated in the technical, scientific and medical fields we are quickly going to lose our edge to countries like India. We will be in the fast lane to becoming a third world country.

I've already stated that the cost to students has become obsecenly high. It needs to change. Our zenith as a country started with a new crop of GI bill scholars. It's not the paper, its the knowledge and technical abilities gained. And we need to get companies out of their short-term focus. That's easy. Eisenhower did it.

Smallwheels

I quit college for a couple of reasons. The first was that I hated being forced to learn crap that had nothing to do with my major. I was studying classical guitar performance. Which meant I wasn't learning the teaching side of it, just the performance part. The second reason was that I realized that I didn't need to study any more because I already had the skills necessary to be a professional. My guitar training began when I was five years old. Off and on I took lessons throughout the years. Classical guitar wasn't really my focus. It was only another guitar skill to learn.

A car wreck forced me out of being a musician when my neck was twisted. It now permanently puts pressure on nerves that go down my hands and fingers. The coordination in all of my fingers is much less than needed for fast precise motion. Traction therapy is the only thing that helps and it won't return my coordination.

Nobody anywhere on Earth will ask a musician to see his diploma before allowing him to perform. It's all about what you can do. That is where businesses in the USA are making big mistakes. So many require degrees instead of just testing people for competence or perhaps aptitude. Companies should just give people career aptitude tests and place them exactly where they're strengths lie. That way they would retain people longer and have a more productive organization.

I haven't had any jobs that required a degree. Every job I've had required the company to train me to do things the way they wanted them done.

I went to bar tending classes and learned how to mix drinks and operate a bar using proper sanitation. No company asked to see my certificate. I just showed up and they trained me. I knew how to mix drinks and that is all they wanted to know.

In all of my sales jobs it was the same. I had a conversation with the boss and the boss made the decision to hire me.

As a bus driver all I needed was an interview, a background check, and a valid drivers license. They trained me to get a Commercial Drivers License (CDL) class B with passenger and student endorsements.

College degrees today aren't worth it. I'm thinking about taking a course to learn to drive large trucks. I'll need a class A license. Truck drivers don't earn a fortune but they are in demand. A day doesn't go by without job listings wanting drivers. There are companies that will train drivers for free but none of them allow pets in their trucks. That is why I'll need to save some money for the course. My dog must travel with me.

Lao

Smallwheels: You're missing the point. Mixing drinks, driving buses and trucks or even playing guitar doesn't make any improvements in medicine (as one of many examples). Artkansas, if I understand that person (he or she?) correct, are not talking about college degrees or education just to get a job as much as education for being part of bleeding edge science. The claims "Education is unnecessary because I have got jobs without a degree" or "My degree didn't get me a job but I have found jobs in other areas thanks to self education" misses the point. That's not the question.

dcrowell

This thread derailed a bit, but I'll keep on that for a bit:
I have a professional job and never attended college. I got lucky. I also miss out on some opportunities where policy prevents them from hiring me even though I have 11 years of experience in my field. If I were younger, I'd consider going to college.

...and back on topic:
I'm not sure how much the world has changed, because my life has changed so much that my viewpoint is skewed. My political leanings have changed. My consumerism is mostly gone. My health is better. My goals are much different. My whole outlook is different.

So, the world looks different, but much of the change was in me.

Artkansas 

You are correct. There are two issues here. And I think that faced with such education costs, that on an individual level, Smallwheels and dcrowell are correct, that the payback on a college degree has shrunk tremendously, and that it's often no longer a viable decision. So they are wise on the individual level. But on a collective level, America will lose much if it continues to force people into these decisions.

Certainly the education system needs repair. I have no regrets about getting my degree, however. I paid cash, no student loans, and unlike many of my fellow students, I realized that the university was best used as a tool for educating myself, and found ways to arrange classes with remarkably little dross and that could be leveraged to study what I needed. Not declaring a major till my last quarter helped a lot.

It didn't hurt that I went to U.C. Santa Barbara, so I spent several years living on the coast with the only thing between where I lived and the beach being a footpath and that the lively bicycle culture there, made being car-free easy.

Smallwheels

I believe a college degree is a valuable and necessary thing for people who know they want to be doctors or engineers. A college degree is a waste of time for somebody who eventually wants to own their own business or just have a degree handy to find any decent paying job.

This discussion in a way does fit into the statement "What is this world coming to?'' When talent and determination aren't enough for a corporation to accept from a job applicant then it just promotes hopelessness. Without a degree you are worthless in the eyes of a corporation. Rules within companies probably prevent human resource personnel from hiring capable people.

If I were more disciplined I'd run my own business. One day I might find something that I can enjoy and earn money doing. So far nothing but playing guitar has kept me interested for long. Thus I get jobs instead of a career. When I was a guitarist I could practice for hours every day and not feel at all like it was work. Perfecting songs was a process that took hours but to me it was 100% fun. Even if I only got paid for playing two hours I was rehearsing and practicing more than sixty hours per week.

Years ago I read a great proposal about changing education. It stated that people should be allowed to start working at age fourteen. Everything people need to know for basic employment is already there by eighth grade. Our whole society caters to that level of knowledge. At fourteen people could choose which type of profession they want to pursue. Most of what is needed is tradesmen. Two to four years of apprenticeship would have a fully professional person at ages sixteen to eighteen.

A fully trained eighteen year old could continue in the trade in which they were trained until they decided they wanted to do something different. Their trade would allow them to quickly save money so they could pursue a different career through more education.

Lower education could be made broader to encompass simpler versions of high school classes. That would give people a basic understanding of chemistry, biology, and civics. My lower education was extremely repetitive. All of it should have been accomplished by sixth grade.

tony_merlino

Professional jobs are harder to come by than they were, but they're still out there. It's a more competitive world, but that doesn't mean that it's not worth it to compete. Somebody still wins.

This notion that college is a waste of time is great if you're happy with what you can do without a degree. For my kids, I figure that they can always fall back to tending bar, driving a truck, working in retail, if they don't make it in the fields they really want to shoot for (which still require advanced degrees). It might be more common to hear someone say, "I failed at my attempt to be a physicist, so I'm tending bar", than it once was. But it's still pretty rare to hear someone say, "I failed at tending bar, so I got a job as a particle physicist". It's easy to fall down; much harder to fall UP. Just sayin'

At the risk of Ekdog accusing me of self-promotion, I'll say that I've never regretted getting my degrees. They've made it possible to work at, and get paid for working at, things I would have felt privileged to be allowed to do for free. I don't think I'd be able to say that if I'd packed it in and just worked in retail or something like that.

Roody

Personally, I'm doing the same job for the same amount of money (adjusted for inflation) as I did right out of high school. And that's after I got AA, BA, and MA degrees. After paying off college loans for more than 10 years, my education was definitely a net loss financially. But that says more about me and my "failings" than it does about anything else. I'm still a strong believer in education. It benefits the individual as well as her/his country and world. My education has added so much to my own life in non-financial ways that I certainly wouldn't trade it to get all that money back.

The US still has the greatest advanced education system in the world. Millions of people are here form all over the world to study in our universities and professional schools. When I ride a #1 bus between Lansing and East Lansing, mpst of the passengers are in their 20s or 30s and speaking some language other than English. Even our local community college has more than 100 students from China alone. They get some help from their governments to pay for their educations. Chinese leaders understand that in order to turn the corner from manufacturer of knockoff technology, they need a highly trained work force. American leaders, OTOH, have priced most of our young people out of higher education. That worries me when I think of my grandson and his generation.

Ekdog

No, I think we're in agreement here. I'm a strong believer in the benefits of a liberal education.

yellowsirocco

Makes sense to me. Art/Music is at most a hobby for most people and not something to put food on the table. My father has a BFA in studio art, but had to get a masters in education to teach art in public school. He sells some art on the side, but it doesn't pay the bills. He could have gone straight into education and started teaching while working on grad school instead of working blue collar jobs.

Basically what it boils down to is that most BA degrees are junk and most BS degrees have value. Now there are some valuable BAs and some junk BSs, but for the most part if you want a job using your degree you should get a BS. The fact that people out there get degrees in women's studies means we need a paradigm shift.

---------------
Now about those micro-studios. I would love to find one of those in my city if the price was right. I have 476 sqft right now and it feels like a palace. I had three bikes in there the past few months with room for more. I have just spent too much time in a tent. I know a few tiny apartments exist in my town, but they cost much more than I pay now because they are in a "prime location" (only about .5km from where I live now).

DX-MAN

Lao, since when is everyone required to sacrifice personal goals, tastes, and ambitions for the 'greater good' of society? Sure, the point could be made that if someone has certain inborn gifts, that society should reap the benefit of the POTENTIAL in those gifts; the point could ALSO be made that the aborted child of a **** victim could find the cure for cancer and heart disease. It's all theory.

Had I the chance to 'do it over', I might well pursue architecture; but then, I wouldn't have met my first wife, adopted her two girls, joined the military and seen some of the world, etc.... I feel today -- simply because I have a hard time providing for my extended family NOW like I'd like to -- that maybe I SHOULD have pursued a higher education, but it didn't happen.

Life is what happens while we are making other plans. THAT is a point you can't get around.

EDIT: MODS, WTF? "R-A-P-E" DOESN'T PASS THE AUTO-CENSOR? GMAFB..........

Lao

DX-MAN: I could answer: Since utilitarianism became the answer on what our moral rights and duties are, but I'm not sure it really is.
Instead my answer will be this: I don't really understand how that is relevant to what I wrote earlier. I have said nothing about what people on an individual level should do, not for themselves nor for the greater good. A good educational system, I believe, makes it easier and more profitable to study advanced science (amongst other things as well). With that, more will do so and it will get easier to break new grounds in different fields.