In Search of the “Good Life”: The Appeal of the Tiny House Lifestyle in the USA

Abstract

Over the past decade, tiny houses and the lifestyle they promote have become a world-wide phenomenon, with the trend especially impactful in the United States. Given their broad appeal and increasing prominence within popular culture, it is surprising how little research exists on them. To help to better understand what motivates people to adopt this lifestyle, this paper presents insights from an exploratory study in the United States and offers the first contours of a new conceptual framework. Situating the lifestyle within the larger economic and cultural forces of our times, it argues that going “tiny” is seen by tiny house enthusiasts as a practical roadmap to the Good Life: A simpler life characterized by more security, autonomy, relationships, and meaningful experiences. The paper ends with a brief discussion of broader implications and directions for future research.

Small Houses, Big Community: Tiny Housers’ Desire for More Cohesive and Collaborative Communities

“…The tiny house movement has drawn much inspiration from other lifestyle movements as well as intentional communities (Mangold and Zschau 2019). While there is a lack of systematic research on how community is viewed within these sister movements, the following section attempts to paint a simple picture of the role community plays in Voluntary Simplicity (VS), Minimalism, and certain intentional communities (e.g., Cohousing Communities and Ecovillages).…”

“…In their efforts to regain control over their lives, many tiny housers strive for financial independence, personal autonomy, and new experiences. They also seek deep meaningful relationships and, by extension, community (Jebbink 2019;Mangold and Zschau 2019;Shearer and Burton 2018). Those who heed the calling for a simpler life, however, do not just settle for any type; they appear to prefer more cohesive and collaborative community structures.…”

“…It may be precisely these ideas that have begun to challenge and alter their views of community. While prior studies have demonstrated that community is an important motivator for living tiny (Boeckermann et al 2019;Jebbink 2019;Mangold and Zschau 2019;Mutter 2013), little is known about where tiny housers ideas surrounding community originate. Some scholars have suggested that since the tiny house movement remains primarily an online phenomenon (Hutchinson 2016), tiny housers derive much, if not most, of their information from blogs, news articles, and web-based forums (Katra 2017).…”

“…While some scholars view the environmental (Ford and Gomez-Lanier 2017;Kilman 2016;Vannini and Taggart 2016) and anti-consumerist aspects (Harris 2018;Roy 2019) as the ideological core of the movement, others argue that the TH lifestyle, at its heart, constitutes an existential quest for the "Good Life." Mangold and Zschau (2019), for example, believe that many tiny housers simply embrace this lifestyle to regain a sense of ontological security and individual autonomy in order to define life on their terms. Whether individuals embrace the lifestyle out of necessity or choice, all try to move past the cultural obsession with "stuff" in order to embark on a journey in search of new experiences and/or more meaningful relationships (Hanks 2017).…”

“…Boeckermann (2017) for example, found that for a majority of tiny housers, having a sense of community is an "important" factor for living tiny (with a quarter of them seeing it as a "highly" important). Other studies echo this desire for social connectedness by suggesting that tiny housers seek meaningful relationships and stress the importance of community in their lives (Harris 2018;Mangold and Zschau 2019). Kilman (2016) also stresses that living tiny not only creates new opportunities for people to interact and/or get involved within their local communities, but that the lifestyle can also foster more intimate encounters with nature.…”