Although working toward a life-size Barbie Dreamhouse might have once represented the American Dream, indoor hot tubs, walk-in closets and multiple living rooms no longer define success for many. As people reprioritize their lives to nurture careers, travel and focus on passions, they opt for small, ultra-functional urban spaces over sprawling suburban homes. Why?
Related: How Living With Less Can Give You More
As organization expert Marie Kondo, whose best-seller The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up reinforced the trend toward simplified, streamlined and stress-free living, writes, “The space in which we live should be for the person we are becoming now, not for the person we were in the past.” People now want the space they live in to reflect this idealized self—a clutter-free, efficiently happy human. Small homes limit what we can keep and require us to constantly reevaluate our inventory. There is literally no space for excess.
Big cities are embracing the micro-housing trend with minimal micro-studios and co-living spaces. By simplifying our spaces and rethinking what a home requires, we inadvertently simplify our lives and redefine need versus want.
Related: What Living Like a Minimalist Actually Looks Like
This article originally appeared in the December 2017 issue of SUCCESS magazine.
