By 2015, 40 per cent of German households are expected to contain just one person.
Half the children of British-born mothers are being born outside marriage, according to the British government’s Office of National Statistics.
CONSPICUOUS CONSUMPTION
ONLY CONNECT
Unsustainable single-person households are in the firing line Governments around the world exhort their citizens to reduce their energy use in an effort to combat climate change. But any benefits won from reducing the energy consumption of the average household may be wiped out by a large increase in the total number of households. What’s good news for manufacturers of cars, TVs and vacuum cleaners may not be so good for the environment. When one couple becomes two singleperson households, each wants a car, to make separate trips to the supermarket. And although they each buy half as much food as they did as a couple, they bring home more than half as much packaging. Having unwrapped their meals for one, they heat them in the oven, eat them in front of the TV before switching out the light and going to bed, each having used as much energy as they previously did as a couple. These ‘inefficiencies’ are present in almost all aspects of the home and daily life. Research done by the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford shows that per capita energy consumption in a two person household is about sixty per cent of that in a one person household. In a five person household the figure is less than 40 per cent. And just as singleperson households make few savings on energy required to heat and light homes, they are also responsible for disproportionately large amounts of the embodied energy required to produce the furniture and consumer goods with which their homes are filled. The picture is not unremittingly bleak, however. While the number of single-person households in the suburbs is rising, those who live alone still make up a significant proportion of the population in dense urban centres, reducing car use and allowing efficiencies in everything from food distribution to street lighting. Some forms of local generation that are not available for most individually owned single-family houses make sense in large apartment buildings. And single-person households are expected to account for a large part of future
housing need, creating the opportunity to develop much more efficient housing for many. Increasing recognition of the number of single-person housholds on the part of housing developers, product designers and retailers may go some way towards making single-person households more efficient: currently many people living alone are in dwellings that are too big for their needs, using washing machines that are too big for their needs, and buying food in quantities that do not suit them simply because that is what is available. Even if the typical single-person household no longer contains the ‘thrifty widow’, eking out a low-impact lifestyle on a pension, large numbers of singles would be interested in living a more sustainable life especially as the costs of doing otherwise rise. But to make a real difference will require a significant degree of cooperation and a willingness to try new things, ideas and places. Are they up for it? For some, it may not be an issue of choice for much longer. Green taxes on white goods in countries such as the Netherlands already bear more heavily on single-person households, and commentators such as Dr Jo Williams of the Bartlett School of Planning have suggested occupancy taxes on people using too much space. Some combination of good intentions and financial penalty may yet stimulate demand for alternative, more sustainable forms of housing for those living alone.
The supermarket run in Singletown? Many people living alone need for their own the same products - from cars to washing machines - that would be shared in larger households. Photo: Corbis.
SPLENDID GREY SINGLES ISOLATION?
In just the last two years, findings have been published to suggest that those who live alone are at greater risk of ailments, ranging from depression and diabetes to heart failure and dementia. But does living alone in itself make people ill, or is it factors associated with, though not inherent in, the single life? A study of women between the ages of 50 and 64 in southern Sweden, for example, found that while those living alone had a higher incidence of diabetes, this was mainly due to increased levels of smoking and drinking – a ‘single’ lifestyle, rather than living alone per se. Another study in Denmark found that age and living alone were the two strongest predictors of serious heart problems. Again the researchers pointed out that living alone can contribute to lifestyles that lead to heart problems, including smoking, obesity and fewer doctor visits. Again, the conclusion points towards a particular lifestyle, rather than the simple fact of being alone. But other studies have pointed the finger at the single state itself. Research at the University of Chicago found that men and women between 50 and 68 years old who scored highest on measures of loneliness – perhaps a less avoidable risk for singles than smoking or obesity – also had high blood pressure, and other research has shown that losing a loved one carries a risk of heart-attack-like symptoms. From many of the studies it emerges that loneliness does pose a significant risk, especially to mental health. People living on their own are significantly more likely to experience a depressive episode or suffer obsessive compulsive disorder and panic disorders, according to Britain’s Office of National Statistics, and twice as many single women take their own lives as married women. Researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute have found that not living with a partner can increase the risk of dementia by up to six times, and believe that the mental stimulation of living with someone may be preventative. Dr Krister Hakansson, who led the study, explained that “Living in a couple relationship is normally one of the most intense forms
of social and intellectual stimulation. If social and cognitive challenges can protect against dementia, so should living as a couple.” For many people living alone, loneliness is a significant concern. According to the British charity, Help the Aged, half the older men living alone in the UK say they feel ‘trapped’ in their own homes. It is to loneliness, as more than one survey concludes, that more attention in public policy might be directed. Central to this effort must be urban planning and the design and provision of housing. As private space becomes ever more private, the importance of public space increases. Community facilities such as libraries, for example, can be adapted to increase their social potential. Indeed, in Sweden public libraries are already described as ‘the living room in the city’ or ‘the town salon’, and OMA included a ‘living room’ in its Seattle Public Library. In the UK, libraries increasingly offer cafes, some local authority services such as benefit payments, and areas of soft furnishing allowing them to be used as relaxation spaces even by non-readers. The Idea Store libraries designed by David Adjaye in some of London’s most disadvantaged areas have welcoming reception areas in which visitors can perch on comfortable sofas to watch plasma screen TVs. Libraries, however, are a rare example of a public building type that is changing in step with the new reality and the threat of extinction in the face of new technologies has encouraged them to carve out new roles as outward-looking community hubs, rather than inward-looking repositories of knowledge. But could similar strategies be employed in other public building types too? And as the number of citizens experiencing the classic urban feelings of anonymity and alienation increase, is there a public-health argument against the city as a place of surveillance, gated communities and the growing privatization of public space, and in favour of the urban realm as a meeting place, whose parks, streets and squares foster those casual interactions that the urbanist and writer Jane Jacobs called ‘the small change from which a city’s wealth of public life may grow’?
As the babyboom generation enters old age, the question of housing for seniors comes sharply into focus.
Perhaps more important, their very freedom from the traditional aspirations and obligations when it comes to choosing housing may have wider benefits. They may not contribute to the schools that are one of the traditional hubs of the community, but the fact that they do not need to be located near to good schools gives them the freedom to explore alternative areas in which to live – a fact to which the recent explosion of apartment buildings in downtown San Diego is at least partially attributable. Likewise, people living alone have played a significant part in the regeneration of central Manchester in the UK. In 1990 there were 90 people living in the heart of the city, today there are 25,000, and the city is booming. The regeneration of city centres has clear economic benefits, but economic sustainability is only one of the ‘triple bottom lines’ now used as standard in urban and community accounting. The trick will be to get the other two – social and environmental sustainability – at the same time.
In Germany and Switzerland, people over 50 will account for around half of the population by the middle of the century. And the proportion of elderly people living alone is also increasing: nearly half of Swiss women aged 65-74 are now in singleperson households. In Britain, the number of older men living alone has risen by a fifth in just the last two years – a fact at least partially attributable to the rising divorce rate. Advances in healthcare and life expectancy also mean that more people are able to live independently for longer.
John McCain or Barack Obama: the result, apparently, will be determined by singles. Not only are they numerous but they act together, giving them greater political clout than any of the special-interest lobbies politicians try so hard to cultivate. In the 2004 US election, according to political analysts, it was easier to predict voting patterns based on marital status than on gender. The big electoral issue for singles is healthcare, where many perceive that they are unfairly treated by the US system. But that is just the start of a list of grievances singles around the world might make. If they book a vacation, they pay a singles’ supplement. If they take out insurance they pay a higher premium than a married person for the same car. Food comes packaged as though the nuclear family was still the norm. Pro-singles campaigner Bella DePaulo calls such discrimination ‘singlism’. With such a large market poorly served by existing options, it is not surprising that the corporate giants and their advertising agencies are quickly positioning themselves to take advantage of what China’s Ministry of Commerce calls the ‘single economy’ – a new consumption structure different from the family-oriented one, with a long-term positive effect on the economy at large. International web-based travel agent Lastminute.com reports that singles holidays are the fastest growing part of the market, and an IKEA ad appealing to viewers whose marriages were breaking down to ‘Just pack up, ship out, find a place of your own’ is one of several recent commercials by major brands touching on a subject unmentionable in advertising only a few years ago.
The number of people living alone also creates opportunities for entirely new products and services, from the New Yorkbased website tinyliving.com, supplying products for very small households, to Aviva, which claims to be the world’s first hotel specifically for singles, and opened in Hohenweg, Austria, earlier this year.
These trends in Europe and America have been established for some time. In China, demographic change, as with so much else, is happening at a startling rate. According to the Chinese Research Center on Ageing, 30 per cent of China’s urban senior citizens lived alone in 2004 and the figure is expected to rise to 80 per cent as soon as 2010, a phenomenon the researchers attribute to the increased ability of the young to provide their own accommodation and a growing difficulty in bridging the generation gap. With China’s population both growing and ageing, it is expected to have 400 million citizens over the age of 60 by 2050.
It remains to be seen how singles will cast their vote in the US presidential election. Neither candidate has made a specific point of targeting singles as a group. Perhaps politicians’ reticence will leave the door open for ‘single-issue’ political parties in the future, adding to the advocacy groups, publications and websites that already champion the single lifestyle. In the meantime financial muscle is the singles’ greatest asset in their fight for equal treatment. The commercial landscape is changing. Invest now in companies that make meals for one, compact cars and party clothes. Sell your stock in makers of baby food, people carriers and bridal gowns.
Such changes will have profound effects on the appearance of cities. Demand for single-family houses may decline while demand for urban apartments rises. But it is unlikely that many older people would want to live in the places that would positively attract younger people living alone, close to bars and nightclubs. Instead, transport links allowing visits to family are important, as are facilities such as places of worship, access to learning, exercise and community groups. Loneliness is a major factor for older people living alone, who tend to spend a far higher proportion of their time within their own four walls than their younger, working counterparts. Given the numbers involved, the needs of older people may be a factor in a much greater range of housing in the future. Although there is no single housing type that suits all old-age lifestyles, considerations range from basic planning issues – minimizing level changes, providing ample room to manoeuvre – to the specifics of detail: can a door be unlocked and opened with one hand? Can cupboards be reached by someone whose spine is beginning to curve, or whose arms are not as strong as they once were? Technology is also likely to play a greater role in preserving the independence of older people. At the museum of communication in Lisbon, Portugal, architect Tomas Taveira has set up the ‘home of the future’, a prototype house equipped with innovations ranging from ramps instead of stairs to a self-operating vacuum cleaner and a talking washing machine. Most housing typologies for older people derive from the hotel or the hospital, but as numbers grow and life expectancy rises, new forms may be found. After all, the home is not simply shelter but the place where daily life is played out, the repository of memories, a source of pride and the backdrop to a phase of existence that should still be more about life than death.
From politics to product design, the singles form a constituency that cannot be ignored.
The last US census showed that the average single-person household has a higher income per person than those in twoperson households, and they spend it differently. The global market research agency Euromonitor suggests that singles boost sales of everything from clothes and make-up – they spend more trying to look good – to consumer goods suitable for smaller living spaces, such as slim-line dishwashers.
Where will you live at the end of your life? For many, staying with their children is not an option: their priority is retained independence, and there is an overwhelming preference for remaining in their own homes – as a couple or, increasingly, alone.
With those living alone disproportionately likely to be renters rather than homeowners, and to move house more frequently than those in larger households, some fear that the rise in the number of single-person households may challenge existing community cohesion. Indeed, nearly half of Japanese singles living alone say they would not even recognize their neighbours’ faces. And yet there is also evidence to suggest that singleperson households can be good for the common store of ‘social capital’ in unexpected ways; women who live alone are more likely to do volunteer work than those who are married.
STRENGTH IN NUMBERS
Bulky, endlessly reconfigurable expanded polystyrene street furniture designed by Popelka Poduschka Architekten is a popular summertime attraction in Vienna’s Museumsquartier. The 116 elements are a different colour every year.