I lived on a kibbutz for nearly three years after university and had similar levels of personal space. While I definitely would not want to live on a kibbutz for my whole life, there were very significant downsides (internal politics), I made some lifelong friends there and overall consider that experience to have been very positive, in particular for my social life.
that's not comparable to SRO in the city, where you'd be sharing living space with far more diverse and vibrant characters. no one in their sane mind would choose to live in one of those, unless they were on the brink of homelessness.
Oh we definitely had diverse and vibrant characters, and that was part of what made living there fun. I also find it strange that in a page about solutions to loneliness, you reject one that, by your own admission, would introduce someone lonely to a wide variety of new people.
But if you're trying to use it as a euphemism for drug addicts, I think you'll often find that they end up homeless, despite there being SROs, because they spend their SRO rent on drugs instead, and they get evicted. If you're trying to use a euphemism for sex workers, the successful SROs usually had strict rules around the Single Resident part.
Basically it's just like hotels, in the sense that there are both seedy, run-down, crummy hotels and there are upscale hotels. That there are some crummy hotels is not an indictment of hotels in general. If you make the category legal, you will find worse and better examples, and lonely people would have their choice of establishment that would help put them back into close proximity with others.
>I also find it strange that in a page about solutions to loneliness, you reject one that, by your own admission, would introduce someone lonely to a wide variety of new people.
I don't see how sharing the bathroom and the kitchen with alcoholics, drug addicts, ex-cons, and mentally ill could possibly alleviate one's loneliness. and trust me, even a few of those per floor are enough to make living there an unpleasant experience.
you picture SRO as some kind of hippie commune thing. it's not. again: no one in their sane mind actively chooses to live in such inhumane conditions. it is utterly bizarre to me that someone would romanticize sharing a toilet with fifty other people.
Like I said, if SROs are legal, you will get better and worse examples. Certainly a lot of people lived in university dormitories which are not, of course, filled with the dregs of society. Is there a market for an SRO hall filled with young Congressional staffers in Washington DC? Or one on Wall Street for young entry-level folk working in investment banks pulling 16 hour days in their first couple of years? Almost certainly. You keep out the dregs of society the same as anywhere else: you charge more than the cheapest places and ask people to sign a strict behavioral code where violations result in quick eviction.
And you share a toilet with a hundred other people in your workplace. So what? SRO rent pays for cleaning staff for common areas.
