Humanity is increasingly moving into cities, but the Earth isn’t getting any bigger.
That means our apartments are getting smaller and our living arrangements denser.
Some people get roommates to avoid living in such small spaces. Others, because of poverty or personal obligations, have no choice but to accept their crowded circumstances.
We don’t know how they do it, but somehow they make it work.
Wang Cunchun, 90, lives with his 60-year-old son in a 107-square-foot apartment in Shanghai, China.
Aly Song/Reuters
China’s largest developer China Vanke showcases a micro-apartment at the Pearl River Delta Real Estate Fair in the city of Guangzhou.
Reuters
In space-deprived China, tiny is the new big.
Reuters
Like in all tiny apartments, efficient storage keeps the room from feeling too constricting.
Reuters
The Burger family, from Los Angeles, gets ready in a converted garage in wife Elizabeth Burger’s mother’s home. The family lost their home in 2009 and was forced to sell their possessions.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
Dharavi, a locality in the middle of Mumbai, India, is one of the largest slums in Asia. More than a million people live there.
Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
The rent for a 100-square-foot home ranges from $0.04 per square foot to $0.06 per square foot.
Danish Siddiqui/Reuters
In a 60-square-foot apartment in Hong Kong, a mother spends $487 a month to house herself and her son.
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
By comparison, Jon-Christian Stubblefield lives in a spacious 200-square-foot studio in Seattle.
Nick Adams/Reuters
“It was an affordable option living inside the city’s core for under $1,200,” Stubblefield told reporters in 2013.
Nick Adams/Reuters
A few miles away, Seungchul You agrees his one-room, 200-square-foot apartment suits his needs just fine.
Nick Adams/Reuters
In the Chinese city of Hefei, patients who can’t afford a bed at the local hospital are forced to receive treatment in one of the 86-square-foot rooms in a nearby apartment building.
Jianan Yu/Reuters
In nearby Hong Kong, the real-estate prices per square foot are so high that people occupy rooms as small as 35 square feet just to live affordably.
Siu Chiu/Reuters
Simon Wong, an unemployed 61-year-old man also living in Hong Kong, lives in a 4’x6′ box. He’s one of many residents living in “coffin homes.”
Bobby Yip/Reuters
The space is his bedroom, entertainment center, and closet all in one. He pays $226 a month.
Bobby Yip/Reuters
New Yorkers were introduced last year to the city’s first official micro-apartment building near the Manhattan neighborhood of Kips Bay. Each one measures roughly 300 square feet.
AP/Julie Jacobsen
The modern spaces are designed to maximize flexibility, with telescoping tables and Murphy beds that descend from the wall. Monthly rents range from $2,500 to $2,900.
AP/Julie Jacobson
Sometimes even 300 square feet is considered palatial. The Keret House in Warsaw (named after Israeli writer Edgar Keret) is just 36 inches wide at its narrowest point.
Kacper Pempel/Reuters
The house is so small that it’s classified as an art installation. The building’s architect, Jakub Szczesny, and Keret select writers and artists to stay there for brief residencies.
Kacper Pempel/Reuters
The house opened its door (it only fits one) in 2012.
Kacper Pempel/Reuters
Kong Kyung-soon, 73, lives in a cramped apartment with just 21 square feet of living space, not including the area for her toilet and hot plate.
Lee Jae Won/Reuters
She lives next to the posh Gangnam suburb, in Seoul.
Lee Jae Won/Reuters
Inside a 600-square-foot apartment complex in Hong Kong sit 19 units, all measuring less than 25 square feet. They are known as “cubicle homes.” Or, more ominously, “coffin homes.”
Bobby Yip/Reuters
With rent costing $150 a month, the units are comprised of just two wooden panels set together. Residents are just steps from shopping and financial districts.
Damir Sagolj/Reuters
Another style is the “cage home,” a stackable six-foot-by-two-foot wire box, also located in Hong Kong.
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
Hundreds of elderly men, such as Kong Siu-Kau, live in these conditions. In one such building, up to 12 men can live together in tightly packed cages.
Victor Fraile/Reuters
The conditions are squalid. There are bed bugs and putrid smells.
Bobby Yip/Reuters
Until the Hong Kong government acknowledges the danger of the conditions, however, the best residents can do is protest. The cages are where many will live out their remaining years.
Bobby Yip/Reuters
