Housing is meant to make our lives more comfortable from the outside. Besides walls that protect us from hostile circumstances, we have equipped the interior with an accumulation of tools and devices. To be spoiled by all those belongings has only been followed by even more things. Digitalization marked a shift in the minimalism of interior design; while it was first about shrinking, smoothing, and hiding those tools and devices, 3D printing and the Cloud enable us to live with almost nothing aside from what we need at this very moment.
The only thing that cannot be expanded out of nowhere is our exclusive living area. Earth's surface is fixed and the population continues to grow while further building is restricted. The result is a cult of vast, empty, naturally lit space, in densely populated areas, if possible. After thousands of years of civilization and mass murder, we are talking square meters. The medium-rich are selling shares or their companies to buy architectural jewels, devote years of their lives to polishing them, live in them like in a shrine, and make a living by occasionally renting it out for special occasions.
Walled space has become the ultimate luxury. Even more—as everyone needs a minimum of shelter—to have a place to put a bed and your clothes is just as important as having an address to gain the status and benefits of a full citizen. Still, while lots of states guarantee their inhabitants food, clothes and health care, they don't guarantee shelter. At most they pay your rent up to a certain amount.
Virtually everywhere on Earth the prices to rent or buy residential space have been rising faster than the average income, the result of which is a self-fulfilling prophecy of mass speculation for a further rise in prices. If you don't buy a house or apartment now, you probably won't be able to afford a similar one for the rest of your life. You are under the gun to start climbing the real estate ladder as fast as possible, and to already include space for your eventual kids so that you won't be forced to move to a worse part of town when you actually start a family. Couples stay together only because of the decent piece of real estate they once got together. Maybe the piece of real estate is so exquisite that it becomes the true love interest, effectively turning the marriage into a menage a trois. Ghost, 8½ Weeks, Sleepless in Seattle … since the 1980s, many famous erotic thrillers and romantic comedies show an uninhibited level of real estate porn.
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