30: Small is Beautiful
What if we decided small can be beautiful?
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the beholder sees beauty through the lens of what they hold dear. When it comes to lifestyle beauty relates to how we want to live and how we are used to living.
Aucklanders have lived large for a long time. Many of us are now making different choices to live small. This might still seem quite foreign to many Aucklanders accustomed to lots of space and their own personal bubble. But that doesn’t make small inherently bad.
If we decided small can be beautiful, then we will develop a new appreciation for these things. People who choose to live an inner city lifestyle develop an appreciation of the joys of the small apartment, the small car or the folding bicycle, because space is at a premium in every aspect of their city existence. They recognise the trade-offs but are content that they work for them.
A sense of beauty is important but it can be cultivated and trained to grow in different directions. Small can be beautiful.
Stuart Houghton 2014
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Aucklanders love their self sufficient villages as well- long may they live and long may they be serviced by local bus servces
They also have weird beliefs that they are “self sufficient” . The number of people in walking distance of Mt Eden village, Kingsland or most of the others wouldn’t support 1/4 of the restaurants and other shops that are there.
Of course a lot of these villages are prime candidates for building up nearby (especially since most have good PT) but try getting that past the NIMBYs
Every time I see a remuera tractor barely fitting in its lane on the motorway I keep thinking that our society is being pressured to accommodate larger vehicles on the roads ,in carparks and with council design standards for 90 % car turning. I recently wanted to do a development using smaller turning circles for smaller vehicles where we wanted to cater for people seeking smaller cars and a smaller footprint. We were stopped by the 90% rule and the minimum sizes for garages.Small cars can be half the space of the Remuera tractors but the planners force compliance to the larger vehicles just incase a new owner wants to buy a big vehicle, Allowing choice would be nice but some Council Planners and Urban designers are obsessed with their rules to the detriment of progressive thinking.
I suppose the 4th one means we will have to have small rain as well? 🙂
Is small really beautiful?
Most people if asked would aspire to living in a large home. This is underlined by the fact that in any city a large home is worth more than a small one in the same area. The only reason anyone lives in a flat or terraced house is because you couldn’t afford a large home on the same geography. There is therefore a good reason why the big old villas in Remuera are worth more than an apartment in the same road.
It is the same with cars. People around the world prefer the comfort of travelling in an SUV rather than a micro car. This is why a Range Rover costs more second hand than a smart car. The automotive industry understand this – that is why the new mini and the new Fiat 500 are bigger than the originals.
So size does matter but dont let that depress you – if you have a small appendage or a small apartment – you are better off accepting your lot rather than having envy ruin your life.
Dirk Digler lived in a big house too – I guess he was just born lucky.
I wholeheartedly agree. I live in a small apartment in Watford (greater London) and what I pay for it is a joke. Smaller, especially in terms of property, is not necessarily better.
For those expounding the virtues of small properties, spend some time in the many new build “houses” in the UK and tell me what you think. Yes make good use of land, multi-storey dwellings/apartments, but not so small as to be creating modern-day slums as is happening all over the UK (your post’s graphic sums the slums up succinctly).
You guys are misreading the sentiment here. It’s not that “small is always better and nobody wants big”, but rather “small can be beautiful” or in other words “small can be very good if done right”.
It is perhaps true, if completely irrelevant, to say everyone wants a big house. Yes if I were a billionaire and could afford a big house in the neighbourhoods I like, with a housekeeper to do all the chores and cleaning, and a guy to mow the lawns, and a gardener for the gardens…. Well I might as well be living like a prince at Versailles.
Back to reality, I can’t afford a huge house in a good area and I don’t want to spend my weekends cleaning acres of floor area and mowing a lawn of any description. So I prefer a small home in the right place. I suppose I could have a big house miles away, and take the hit on travel time and houshold maintenance, but I’d rather not. Same with the car, I don’t actually want a land rover because the cost to much to own and run, and they are a bitch to park and manoeuvre around on the streets. Now if I were joe billionaire I’d probably have a land rover for long trips, a Mini Cooper for the city and a ferrari for Sunday drives…. But I’m not, so if anything I’ll go for the mini. Small is beautiful, and affordable, and functional.
Exactly, if the choice for my budget is sharing a big house in some far flung suburb with strangers or an apartment in town almost to myself I know what I want
I will agree we all will have to eventually live a more compact lifestyle.
Me on the other hand like most kiwi’s live in suburbia, with a 900m2 property surounderd by bush in Glenfield l love having piece n quiet when it comes to sleep and the odd loud night cranking the outdoor speakers with m8s beers and a fire.
I have lived in a modern apartment on queen St and found it unbearable, noisy nabours street sweepers and very hot especially in summer without a/c.
I also love these posts. Keep them coming.
The drawing on this one is rather amusing with a fish falling to the guy about to go for a wee over the balcony and looked on by an alian sitting in the living room… Arrr… my mind lol
Another thing quickly its late. An idea inspired by this blog and this author stuats 100 improvements, his early one to cover the grafton motorway and turn into a park. My rather extreme idea would be to cut n cover most of the central motorway junction and bore 2 new tunnels starting under Wellington St along side union St running under k road and coming out by the cemetery becoming a new part of sh1 and the existing route being dropped lowered and coverd to be the connection between the west and north and also cut n cover over 1km of the north western motorway coming up to the cmj, also cut cover from the north w motorway past the new tunnel portal down into Grafton gally. Yes its extreme it I’ll Neva happen it would cost 10s Billion’s it will cripple the connection through and to the cbd for a decade but we can conect many old roads cut by the cmj and lay new parks cycle ways new land for business residential development and in 40 years the cbd would of spread out far past the cmj leaving the new parks full of people and business.