The Actual Sharing Economy

The Actual Sharing Economy

While married couples say the decision to share digs with a roommate is primarily financial, a variety of factors may be influencing the greater openness to communal living, from rental buildings with amenity spaces that give residents elbow room outside of their small apartments to the rise of the sharing economy.

Lindsay Shields, 33, a high school drama teacher, lives with her husband and a roommate in a two-bedroom two-bath apartment in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn. “The idea is, you get married you have your own place,” she said. “I think our society is finding more ways to share and because the economy is what it is, people are realizing it’s just not possible to do that anymore. Space has become a commodity…We live together well with other people, so we might as well share the space.”

This is also known as the “Everything Is So Completely Unaffordable We Might As Well Because There Is No Hope It Will Get Better Any Time Soon” economy.

Photo by Tambako