Sherry B. Ahrentzen challenges the notion that the United States promotes choices in every aspect of one’s life by focusing on the housing structure. She highlights how most homes in the country are based on the same fundamental standard that imitates the nuclear family stereotype from the 1950s. She also asserts that this approach does not apply to everyone equally well due to changing uses for houses and the evolution of different family situations. The essay blames housing providers for this situation, highlights the issues of the arrangement, and proposes some alternatives for it.
Disadvantaged people are affected particularly strongly by the housing paradigm described in the article. Ahrentzen discusses the situation of single parents, whose struggle to look after their child while retaining a full-time job is exacerbated by the price of a house and long commute. Welfare reforms that try to help them tend to ignore housing, which makes them substantially less effective. As a result, the W-2 program described in the essay led to a worsening in the housing situation of those it was meant to help. A substantial housing approach reorientation would be required to resolve this issue.
Ahrentzen claims that housing providers prefer to create and build uniform designs to save costs. However, they do so at the expense of the people whose needs are not met by these standardized residences.
The author opposes this concept and proposes a variety of living arrangements that challenge the established norm and offer more comfortable living for specific population categories. Shared housing improves economic security, transitional housing helps the homeless, multigenerational housing benefits the seniors, hybrid housing lets parents work near their children, and other categories have additional unique benefits. The essay concludes with a promotion of the idea of challenging established norms and advocating for diverse living arrangements in the statehouse.
Work Cited
Ahrentzen, Sherry B. “Choice in Housing.” Harvard Design Magazine, vol. 8, 1999. Web.