Single living: the design of urban spaces
From Future of Local Services to the Public
Contents |
Summary
Changes in demographics, lifestyles and social structures may lead to increased future demand for single occupancy housing.
Low unemployment rates and greater individualism are said to be driving the increase in demand for single occupancy housing. The average UK household size is set to decrease from 2.34 to 2.24 by 2011 with 32.7% of households being lone occupancy. This may strain resources, energy use, waste management and increase pollution, but may also drive urban regeneration and alter the design and feel of urban spaces.
Impacts
- Cities and other desirable locations may become saturated, which could drive changes in their structure, for example, more underground transport systems to free up space.
- More people may opt to buy second homes in rural areas and travel there for weekends and holidays.
- A change in the design and feel of urban spaces
- New forms of social relationships based on a mix of communalism and highly protected individualism and markets for complexes of flats or houses where the people living there have something in common.
- New technologies and home devices may be marketed at single-dwellers, to create a necessary sense of companionship as and when needed. For example, virtual pets and intelligent, interactive home entertainment systems with an A.I. humanistic interface.
- Housing could increasingly be built on reclaimed brown-field sites, leading to a rise in health problems and lawsuits from those who find the sites have dangerous public health problems left as legacies from previous industrial usage.
- Large retail parks and megastores could dominate the out-of-town suburban green-belt spaces
- House prices could go through repeated price spikes, further putting affordable homes out of reach for first-time buyers.
- New buildings could have serious environmental consequences in terms of increased waste and energy use, as well as the damage done through building on unspoilt countryside, in flood plains, or in areas lacking sufficient public infrastructure or business services.
Relevance
- To cope with the demand for single occupancy housing, authorities may have to perform a thorough audit of available residential space. In the most desirable locations, there may need to be development of small, compact housing, which builds upwards or downwards instead of outwards, such as blocks of single occupancy flats.
- Housing design could pursue the concept of social flexibility. Residences could be designed to allow people to close down or open up communal space depending on their mood and/or requirements, which could mean that extremely small individual dwellings could be tolerated.
- Local and Central governments may face pressure to tailor housing policy to match demand but would probably still retain the power to dictate how housing units are developed and redeveloped. The need for new building must be balanced with sustainability issues such as energy use and waste as well as geographical barriers and infrastructure.
- The development of less desirable areas could take some of the strain from cities. This might force the adjustment of working hours, with perhaps greater use of flexible working hours.
References
Links
Sigma Scan (2006) Singleton settlements: The boom in single households, ID 78
