My guess is: Regulation. It would be illegal to build and rent out nano-apartments. (Evidence: In many places in the USA, it’s illegal for more than X people not from the same family to live together, for X = 4 or something ridiculously small like that.)
To add a bit more detail to your comment, this form of housing used to exist in the from of single room occupancy (SRO) buildings, where people would rent a single room and share bathroom and kitchen spaces. Reformers and planners started efforts to ban this form of housing starting around the early 20th century. From Wikipedia:
By the 1880s, urban reformers began working on modernizing cities; their efforts to create “uniformity within areas, less mixture of social classes, maximum privacy for each family, much lower density for many activities, buildings set back from the street, and a permanently built order” all meant that SRO hotels had to be cut back.[10] By the 1890s, SRO hotels became “forbidden housing; their residents, forbidden citizens.”[10] New York City police inspector Thomas Byrnes stated that rather than give SRO hotels “palliative” care, they should be dealt with using a “knife, the blister, the amputating instruments.”[12]
Reformers used moral codes, building codes, fire codes, zoning, planning committees and inspections to limit or remove SRO hotels.[12] An example of moral critiques is Simon Lubin’s claims that “unregulated hotels” were “spreading venereal diseases among the soldiers”.[12] Other reformers tried to ban men and boys from rooming in the same hotels, due to concerns about homosexuality.[12] The building and safety codes criticized SRO hotel problems such as “firetraps, dark rooms, inadequate plumbing, an insufficient ventilation.”[12] In San Francisco, building code inspections and restrictions were often used to racially harass Chinese labourers and the places they lived.[12]
In 1917, California passed a new hotel act that prevented the building of new hotels with small cubicle rooms.[12] In addition to banning or restricting SRO hotels, land use reformers also passed zoning rules that indirectly reduced SROs: banning mixed residential and commercial use in neighbourhoods, an approach which meant that any remaining SRO hotel’s residents would find it hard to eat at a local cafe or walk to a nearby corner grocery to buy food.[12] Non-residential uses such as religious institutions (churches) and professional offices (doctors, lawyers) were still permitted under these new zoning rules, but working class people (plumbers, mechanics) were not allowed to operate businesses such as garages or plumbing businesses.[12]
This fits into a set of ideas about urban planning that were popular in the 20th century but have (at least in my opinion) contributed to housing unaffordability and reduced the diversity and vitality of many of America’s cities.
I lived at 20Mission, which was technically an SRO. I enjoyed the setting quite a bit, though I’ve heard they’ve had trouble recently with COVID. That said, most of the other SROs I know of nearby (in the Mission, SF), are really not nice places. (lots of drugs and some violence).
My guess is: Regulation. It would be illegal to build and rent out nano-apartments. (Evidence: In many places in the USA, it’s illegal for more than X people not from the same family to live together, for X = 4 or something ridiculously small like that.)
To add a bit more detail to your comment, this form of housing used to exist in the from of single room occupancy (SRO) buildings, where people would rent a single room and share bathroom and kitchen spaces. Reformers and planners started efforts to ban this form of housing starting around the early 20th century. From Wikipedia:
This fits into a set of ideas about urban planning that were popular in the 20th century but have (at least in my opinion) contributed to housing unaffordability and reduced the diversity and vitality of many of America’s cities.
A bit more info;
I lived at 20Mission, which was technically an SRO. I enjoyed the setting quite a bit, though I’ve heard they’ve had trouble recently with COVID. That said, most of the other SROs I know of nearby (in the Mission, SF), are really not nice places. (lots of drugs and some violence).
https://www.20mission.com/
There’s been discussion of having “Micro-Units” in SF, but they’re heavily regulated. It seems like small progress is being made.
https://socketsite.com/archives/2012/11/microunits_approved_for_san_francisco_capped_for_market.html
That’s disheartening :-(
But good to know nonetheless, thanks.
Perhaps not a *completely* senseless regulation considering disease spreading (though there are better ways of attacking _that_ with other means).