The American Dream, now fun sized.

So nice that the cars left some space for the people to live in

A lot of people use their garage as storage instead of parking their car in it, especially smaller garages like that one
- Then just build a house instead
- That’s slightly better but it’s still putting stuff over people.

The fun size part doesn't really bother me. For someone like me with no intention of having a family, 969 sq ft seems fine, maybe even more than I'd ever need. The price could be (a lot) better, and I definitely wouldn't want to live in Arizona, but if I did I'd want to be closer to the city than this Florence appears to be.

The real issue here is the waste of space. Since they're already small why have them be individual houses? This would wait more sense as a series of duplexes or something. Small apartment buildings. Hell condos like they say.
- I want to own something and I want an actual garden to grow things in.
- I lived in a duplex for 5 years and the neighbors were so stupid they made me move out.
- Yeah boo tiny homes with yards. That should be high density housing with a shared garden space governed by a board of residents.
Is Arizona a bad place to live. I keep hearing this.
- I live here. The fuck does everybody want to move here for? Public transit sucks, traffic congestion abound, school system is dogshit, you have the elderly that can't drive but still do and are usually horribly bigoted and racist at the W and E ends of the valley, like they are doing a flanking maneuver. We've been in a drought for decades, the power system is only 'fine' even though we have a fucking nuclear plant outside phoenix, plus solar and hydro. We have rich cunts in the east valley and the west is deteriorating even with the constant population and building expansion.
  I like it here because I was born here, everything I know is here. But objectively, anybody wanting to move here is both insane and braindead. It's fucking baffling.
- Ive heard the city of Pheonix described as "the single greatest testament to man's arrogance"... But idk
- It is a bad place to live. The GOP destroyed the bus system, delayed the light rail, starved the schools, poisoned the police departments, and just generally fucked up as much shit as they could before they got voted out.
  On top of that you have the climate and two of the deadliest highway stretches in America. (One gets sandstorms, the other gets blizzards and features cliffs)
  And the local politics is so crappy they managed to push an NHL team out of the market.
- Temperature wise it is different— from Oct - April it is amazing
  When I was in 4th grade , I couldn’t understand why the passengers on Titanic died in the water. In Phx it was always so warm.
  From May - September you are living on the surface of the Sun.
  As a cyclist, is get up at 4 so I could do 50 miles and be home by 9 before it hit 100. You don’t go out unless it is to get in the pool. Unless you really must.
  It would take a 300000 /yr for me to consider living there again
  —moved away at 20. Don’t ever want to go back
- For me it would just be too damn hot, I'm not real keen on living in a desert.
Yeah I don't understand the point of this post.
"We need to build more affordable housing"
Builds affordable housing
"Lol look how small it is Americans are so dumb."
- 150k-250k is affordable?

These are rational housing sizes. People talk about older generations buying houses right on the cheap, my parents raised 5 kids in a 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bathroom home that was around 900 square feet. This is a reasonable size for a family. Old guy rant off.

Nah, 900 square ft is the size of a large apartment. That's a bit cramped even for a couple. Just because you did it doesn't mean it was good. You're great grandparents worked in mines and didn't go to school. Does that mean the child labor laws that protected you are superfluous?
- Families live in large apartments lol. What’s your point? That apartments are only for students or young professionals? Medium density housing with better mass transit links is the future. Low density housing is not environmentally sustainable. I live with 2 kids in 64sqm. Its small but it’s adequate. I’m CBD adjacent, so I’ve no car.
- Wow, ok.... I live with my wife and our two cats in a home only a bit larger than that, in the suburbs.... Kitchen, living, two bathrooms, three bedrooms out of which two were converted to home office, one for each. Got it at €92k, 4 years ago, in fucking Eastern Europe. Same house now costs €160k. So, tbh, $200k+ în the US, somehow sounds reasonable...
- I'm living in Seattle in an 840ft² apt, we've got a living room, dining room, kitchen and a fairly large bedroom. 3 bicycles, both our desks and bookshelves, plenty of closet space... Bud, what are you talking about, cramped?? Lmao
Pretty sure you had more than 900 sq feet unless you ate your meals outside?
- I think sqft isn't a great metric for understanding three size or feel of a house, especially for US Americans. I think most houses have rooms that are too big for their uses, especially bedrooms. When I was looking into moving a year ago I found a house with the same number of bedrooms and bathrooms as my current house but 1/3rd smaller in sqft. And I WANTED to move there because the house was cooler and nicer than mine!
- Tell me you have never been in a little house. Lol. A legal bedroom where I grew up is 75 sq ft. In California it's 70.

It looks like if you park your car in the driveway you get twice the space in the house.

Garages are just storage units. Nobody really parks their car in the garaze, right?
^right?
- I don't know this "garage" you speak of, but my house came with a 25' x 25' detached storage unit with two large overhead bay doors. Oddly, the neighbors store their cars in theirs.
- If you live anywhere that has extreme temperatures, your car will last longer if you park it inside. Bonus, you don't have to scrape the snow off and sit there idling for 10 min to warm it up in the winter.
- I park 2 cars in my garage it what's it for and goddammit I am going use that space for that purpose.

I've been to Florence. If you're not working a farm, retail, or a prison, you don't have a job there. It's not a commuter town for Phoenix. Given the choice I'd live in the metro area over Florence any day of the week.

That's most of rural America. Though there is sometimes [select local industry].
- True but I've lived in some rural places that were actually fun to live in. Good hiking, small batch beer brewers, moonshine, sun doesn't attempt to melt you every day, and the local Republican party isn't all Maga/Q.
  Florence is just a dead eyed suburb masquerading as a rural town.

Probably also in a neighbourhood without water https://grist.org/housing/arizona-rio-verde-foothills-water-wildcat-subdivisions/

No, Florence is not anywhere near Rio Verde Foothills tbh. Florence is actually in a very red county, and houses the state, county, and many private prisons. They shut down all the roads and do vehicle inspections when there is a jailbreak. It is the county seat, and most of the people working in that city do so in a government capacity.

We’ve gone from one extreme (McMansions) to the other (tiny homes). I wonder how closely packed together these are.

A condo in downtown plz

Its all garage

I don't see any flaws in that plan. When I'm home I'm basically either there or in bed. Bikes ain't gonna wrench on themselves.
- Fair play to ya if you use it but most people don't other than for storage. Bike pics?
- That's what I say, but I also live in a 49m2 (530ish square feet) apartment and on the second floor.
  One of the rooms is taken up with various bike part and even then I'm running out of space, pls send help...
- Ah I just wrench at the bike shop, though I do need more garage

Downtown where? No condos you can compare are that cheap near Scottsdale or PHX that you'd want to live in. Those run about $100k more.

Oh wow only the equivalent of living in downtown Dayton when you want to be in Columbus.

661 sq ft is smaller than my shitty apartment.

I've found that it really, really depends on how well the space is used. I lived in an apartment that was about 650sq ft with me, a chihuahua, and sometimes a retriever if I had a foster, but the layout was terrible and there was no storage, so it felt super cramped. Then my ex and I had a 700-ish sq ft place with 2 small dogs and it never felt claustrophobic. I've also toured tiny homes in the <350sq ft range that I'd pick over some apartments twice that size. The houses might be ok if they aren't just "take a regular floorplan and shrink all the rooms."
- Yeah the reason I deem the apartment ‘shitty’ is mostly the way it’s laid out and lack of storage. For example, the kitchen has exactly one drawer. One. Which is too narrow to put a tray in to hold flatware so the cooking paraphernalia is in there and my flatware is in a tray sitting on the counter. The use of space in here is really weird. Still, that’s a good amount of money for a small space.

Can the U.S rename their fucking towns from existing cities' names???

My first home was 2br 1.5ba, 800 sqft, and was a perfect starter. It would have easily accommodated a family of 3, maybe 4 if the kids shared a bedroom. It's more space than most people realize if it's properly utilized. I'd gladly downsize to a home of that size again.

That's pretty much my place right now. It's just the two of us and the cats, so it's plenty. Oh, and the motorcycles.
...My garage honestly has comparable square footage to the footprint of my house. Priorities.
- that's the dream right there. 500 sq.ft. house, 1000sq.ft. garage