Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Trilety Wade's avatar

Damn this was thought provoking in a number of ways. While I've noticed this in passing in cities larger than yours, I hadn't considered what a proportionally larger impact this would have on a much smaller city! You are so adept at really meditating on a variety of aspects of one topic, and as always you give us springboards to larger societal thinking. Anyway, great piece, and I just listened to this podcast yesterday that talks of the popularity of concrete construction even during a time when it won't be suited to our hot future - if you're inclined: https://theconversation.com/keep-buildings-cool-as-it-gets-hotter-by-resurrecting-traditional-architectural-techniques-podcast-190384

Expand full comment
Dane Benko's avatar

I don't know if the UK has the same regulations against SROs as the United States, as part of the West's early gentrification craze, but therein lies the solution:

"Student dorms" are just RSOs, but legal and considered morally permissable because students are supposed to live alone, not migrants, poor people, or itinerant or temporary blue collar workers. Suddenly then they become "flophouses" instead of dorms.

And the refusal of communities to accept RSOs as legitimate housing has a large part to play in homelessness and the soaring prices of housing.

So, what I'm saying here is that the buildings are fine, provided your small town is willing to appropriate their use for SROs if the student population collapses. If not and they go derelict, that's a problem of how the city chose to use them, not in their use value itself.

Expand full comment
14 more comments...

No posts