Starcity, and the new crop of high-tech housing companies, offer a new take on an old model One of the week?s biggest housing stories concerned adults acting like students. A New York Times profile of Starcity, a Bay Area-based developer focused on creating a new type of affordable housing in tech-inflated San Francisco, compared the company?s ?unusual experiment in communal living? to ?dorm living for grown ups.?
On the heels of other startups seeking to find solutions to the affordability crisis in microunits and coliving, Starcity aims to stand apart. As cofounder Jon Dishotsky told Curbed, his company wants to maximize space in unused urban neighborhoods, transforming one-star hotels, office buildings, unused commercial spaces, and even parking garages into residential buildings for increasingly cash-strapped parts of the professional class. Each tenant, or member, pays $2,000 a month for a small, fully-furnished bedroom with wifi, janitorial services, and shared common spaces. ?What I?m worried about is the heartbeat of cities,? he says. ?If teachers, firemen, and policemen can?t afford to live in cities, it ruins their viability.?
Dishotsky understands the dorm analogy. It?s a simple leap to compare adults sharing bathrooms, kitchens, and living rooms with a more collegiate lifestyle. But Starcity, which currently operates 36 units in three buildings and plans to expand to Oakland and beyond, owing to its $18.9 million in venture capital, isn?t a dorm, he says...