This is not dystopian at all, is it? Humans sleeping in pods. I guess it beats homelessness but this seems like a fail on epical levels (unless profits for these pod companies are what we care about).
I dunno, $700/month for a shitbox doesn’t seem like a good deal, sleeping in the car sounds far more reasonable at this point unfortunately
This is the same as renting a room in a house with probably more security and amenities also extremely close to your life activities. Sounds like a steal for the bay area tbh.
No for real, folks are complaining but I would rather sleep inside in a pod, safely than do it in my car
This has been a thing in Japan for a while.
But $700 per what? Month? That’s insanely high everywhere but SF. You can’t get an in-city anything for $700/m.
My mortgage in UK for three bed terraced is £600pcm
Rent in those cities for a 1 or 2 br apartment is probably 5k -7k
I dunno. These kinds of solutions might seem weird to someone used to having an entire apartment, but these kinds of living spaces are common in places like Japan.
And $700 is a lot to someone living in a LCoL area, but given that San Fran is a HCoL area, probably reasonably priced in that relative context.
I’m not picking on you, but the comparison to Japan when I read about things like this makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t care that some people in Japan are comfortable staying in these things; I never want someone thinking this is acceptable for me to stay in. I don’t want living in a box this small to be socially acceptable. This is being pushed on people as the new normal instead of a motel or possibly an apartment and it feels dystopian. My standards for me and everyone else are higher than this.
As I commented further down, I don’t know if I would consider this an overall good thing. Is it better than being homeless? Yes. Is it better than a motel? Probably also yes.
Is it a good long-term solution? I don’t know that I can say either way, honestly. It doesn’t seem like a good long-term solution, but I have a lot of privilege, and perhaps my paradigm is biased.
And if something like this allows somebody to get on their feet, then maybe it’s bad long-term but good in the short-term. I brought up Japan not to say, “This works, because look at Japan,” but to point out that the “Western Ideal” isn’t the only solution, and we shouldn’t let cultural bias prevent consideration of other options or ideas.
Worst part of this is that there is a demand. There are 20 people applying for one
mattresssleeping pod (name everything as “pod” and it sounds futuristic and elite). How is this place ventilated? Can you imagine the unbeareable stench the tenants emit while dwelling there? No wonder it violates city codes. The “privacy curtain” is a joke, you can’t leave your stuff there unattended. It will get stolen in no time. It’s like staying in a youth hostel.
