From Isolation to Innovation: Why We Should Rethink Housing
Apartments put people apart. Immobilia makes us immobile?
The words themselves betray their purpose. "Apartment" comes from the French appartement, which derives from à part — literally "to the side" or "separate." The Italian immobilia means "immovable property" — assets that cannot be moved, traded, or easily changed. These aren't just housing terms; they're architectural expressions of isolation and stasis.
And “immobile” isn’t only about walls that won’t run away. It often means: I stop moving. A home can be a harbor for some — and an anchor in the wrong place for others.
For many, ownership equals security, stability, a life goal. For others, it’s pre-emptive stillness — sometimes even a provisional coffin of bricks and mortgage payments.
Whether a property gives freedom or becomes a shackle depends less on square footage and more on life stage, lifestyle, and the willingness to change place when life changes. What feels like home to one person can feel like a kitchen-fitted prison to another.
In many so-called developed countries, housing has quietly become a system of containment rather than freedom. High prices, investor-driven markets, and marriage-friendly tax laws often lock people into places and relationships they didn't actively choose. If you're not tied down by a mortgage, you're constrained by rent. If you're not coupled up, you're taxed more.
But what happens when even the middle class can no longer afford to move? What happens when relocation—whether for work, climate, or care—becomes a privilege?
We are seeing a quiet crisis in mobility, not just physical, but social and economic. Even in first-world countries, the very idea of relocating feels like a luxury.
This connects directly to the themes I've explored in my other work: the headphone pandemic that isolates us in public spaces, the car culture that traps us in individual vehicles, and the cruise ship cities that show us what community-focused living could look like.
The Loneliness Epidemic: From Headphones to Housing
The same forces that drive us to wear noise-cancelling headphones in public—our desire to control our environment and shield ourselves from unpredictability—are the same forces that have shaped our housing choices. We've created private bubbles not just around our ears, but around our entire lives.
We've normalized isolation as a form of luxury.
Just as headphones create invisible barriers in public spaces, modern housing creates permanent barriers between neighbors. We've designed for privacy at the expense of community, for individual comfort at the cost of collective resilience.
The result? A loneliness epidemic that transcends age, income, and geography. We're more connected digitally than ever, yet more isolated physically than at any point in human history.
Cohousing: A Collective Answer
What if we flipped the script? What if we invested not in real estate as an asset class, but in collective habitats for creativity, support, and agency?
The word "community" comes from the Latin communitas — "shared, public, common." Unlike apartments that put us apart, communities bring us together. Unlike immobilia that makes us immobile, collective living offers flexibility and adaptability.
We need more co-owned cohousing and collective living models — systems that are resilient, anti-fragile, and independent from private equity. These aren't utopian communes. They are proven models for:
- Reducing loneliness — The antidote to the headphone pandemic
- Sharing care work — Practical support for daily life
- Fostering innovation — Where ideas collide and grow
- Increasing housing security — Stability beyond individual ownership
Many of the world's most successful companies started in shared living spaces: garages, dorms, squat-like flats, and hacker houses. Not because they were glamorous, but because they were alive. Ideas collided. Support was mutual. Energy was high.
Apartments and single-family homes, by contrast, often isolate. They reduce contact, reinforce bubbles, and make it easier to not care.
My Valencia Experiment: When Proximity Breeds Connection
Let me share a personal anecdote: I spent a few months living in a coliving house in Valencia. Every week, someone new joined the house — another person, another nationality, another culture. And with that, new stories to listen to, laugh with, learn from. In just a few short months, I felt more connected than I had in years. It remains one of the most memorable and emotionally rich chapters of my life. Not because of the place — but because of the people and the closeness.
This experience mirrored what I discovered about bike-friendly cities — that human-scale interactions create stronger communities than car-dependent isolation. Just as cycling connects you to your environment, shared living connects you to your neighbors.
And coliving can go far beyond flat-sharing. I know people who don't want to have biological children, but are open to raising and caring for kids — including adopted children or those displaced by climate migration. Collective living can also mean collective caregiving. Imagine a world where we don't just share chores, but futures.
My takeaway: Stay agile, not immobile
For me, a pattern emerged: the fewer things I own, the more I move — mentally and geographically. Every item has operational costs: choosing, assembling, cleaning, fixing, reselling. These costs rarely show up in a listing, but they shape daily life.
So I now prefer to:
- live compact and adaptable (tiny house, small apartment)
- choose coliving with shared resources like tools, garden, workbench, cargo bike
- keep lower fixed costs and higher geographic agility
Result: more freedom, faster learning, easier course-corrections — and less stasis disguised as comfort.
The Science of Distance and Caring
Why does this happen? Psychology offers some answers:
Construal Level Theory shows that the farther away something is — in space, time, or social identity — the less emotionally we respond. "My neighbor is struggling" hits harder than "people are lonely."
Finite Pool of Worry tells us that humans can only truly care about a handful of things at once. Abstract, distant threats get deprioritized emotionally.
We care more when we see, hear, and interact with others. Physical proximity amplifies empathy. And empathy is the starting point for action.
This explains why the headphone pandemic is so damaging — it creates artificial distance even in shared spaces. When we can't hear each other, we can't care about each other.
Distance Breeds Division: The Political Cost of Segregated Living
This artificial distance isn't just emotional — it's political.
When we live physically apart from people who think, vote, or struggle differently, our ability to understand and empathize weakens. Research has shown that spatial segregation reinforces political polarization. If all your neighbors drive the same car, shop at the same stores, or share your political bubble, it becomes easier to other, fear, or even despise those outside of it.
Apartments and suburban homes often cluster people by income, ideology, or life stage. Coliving, by contrast, creates friction — the good kind. It invites diverse backgrounds, ages, and perspectives into shared routines: meals, chores, conversations.
The result? Not always comfort, but often understanding.
Proximity isn't just about empathy — it's about democracy.
If we want healthier societies, we can't just bridge digital divides — we must bridge physical ones. Housing policy is social policy. It's also political infrastructure.
The Forest Knows This
In nature, trees thrive in networks. Underground fungal systems — the "Wood Wide Web" — let them:
- Share nutrients
- Warn each other of danger
- Support younger or weaker trees
But this only works if they're close enough to connect.
Humans are no different. We thrive in mutual support systems. Cohousing isn't just about rent splitting or common kitchens. It's about signal transfer. Trust. Mutual visibility.
If we want more resilient, innovative, and empathetic societies, we need to stop designing for isolation.
Rethinking Competitiveness
This isn't just a social issue — it's an economic one. If countries want to remain competitive, they should actively support:
- Shared housing and co-ownership models — Like the 15-minute cities concept, but for living
- Civic infrastructure for collaboration — Spaces that encourage interaction, not isolation
- Tax codes that don't penalize single or co-living individuals — Fair treatment for all living arrangements
Where people can live freely, they can also think freely. And from that freedom comes innovation.
The Mobility Connection
This connects directly to my experience with car culture and freedom. Just as cars trap us in individual bubbles, traditional housing traps us in individual units. Both systems prioritize individual convenience over collective benefit.
But just as I discovered the freedom of cycling in the Netherlands, I've discovered the freedom of collective living. Both represent human-scale solutions to problems created by oversized, individualistic systems.
The same principles apply: smaller, more connected, more human.
Conclusion: Build Closeness, Not Just Buildings
Apartments are designed to separate. Houses to isolate. But communities? Communities are built to connect.
We must invest in housing models that foster empathy, mobility, and invention. The next garage startup might not come from Silicon Valley — it might come from a shared house in Berlin, Rotterdam, or Warsaw.
We just have to make that possible.
The solution to the loneliness epidemic isn't more individual space. It's more shared space. Not more isolation, but more connection. Not bigger apartments, but better communities.
Want to explore this further?
- Happy City by Charles Montgomery
- Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam
- The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
- Research by Jan Gehl, Richard Florida, and Christian Schmid
This article builds on themes explored in my other work: the headphone pandemic that isolates us in public, the freedom found in bike-friendly cities, and the community potential of compact urban spaces. Together, they paint a picture of how we can design for connection rather than isolation.