By Futurist Thomas Frey
The emerging model of affordable living as a service — and why solving the housing problem may also solve the relevance problem
A Conversation That Made Me Revise My Thinking
I recently came across a company exploring what they called “affordable living as a service.” The phrase itself is worth sitting with for a moment, because it reframes something we have always treated as a fixed cost — shelter — as something that could be delivered, bundled, optimized, and priced the way we now think about software, transportation, or entertainment.
The concept is still forming at the edges. But the problem it is responding to is not. The American housing crisis is one of the most consequential and most underappreciated barriers to human potential operating in this country right now — and the standard toolkit for addressing it has largely failed. New approaches, even partially formed ones, deserve serious attention. Because what’s happening to American workers, families, and communities as housing becomes increasingly unaffordable is not just a real estate problem. It is a relevance problem. And it is worsening every year.
Continue reading… “What If Where You Live Was a Subscription?”