By now, Los Angeles's dire need for more housing is fairly common knowledge—rents are seriously unaffordable to the average person and many are wondering how much worse it's going to get for renters. One proposed solution: microunits. Developers seem to think these small, 400-square-foot-or-less apartments are the wave of the future. Smaller units mean relatively lower rents, making deeply unaffordable places like Santa Monica slightly less unaffordable for some. They also offer advantages to developers—the units cost more to build but ultimately make more money. Renters, meanwhile, sacrifice space, but maybe gain more living options. With all those Millennials to house and all that money to be made, tiny unit madness has started to break out in Los Angeles—and it is indeed madness, as the the LA Business Journal found talking to the developers who have caught it.
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