I really like Aeon magazine. Every weekend I get aeon newsletter and there is always some really good article/essay in newsletter. One of these essay that I read today is why there is no place like home anymore.This is a really thought provoking essay.
Essay starts by talking about Tiny Homes that I saw some time back. Tiny home is an interesting concept but I didn’t know that you can also save tax on them. From essay -
The fact that these homes are on a trailer and don’t touch the ground can exempt their owners from property tax in states where they count not as homes but as a vehicle
Home is not only a place where you live, you have so many memories, you feel comfortable when in your home. That’s why concept of home is very dear to humans(and to animals also). From essay -
Home is where the heart is, and there is no place like home, yet a sense of being at home can come from many sources.
Technological advances and political environment are changing the idea of a home. Things are changing fast and the idea of home is also changing. From essay -
which makes home as important to politics as the idea of class or rights – especially now, when so many people feel displaced, both literally and figuratively, by life in innovation-driven, high-tech, networked capitalism. On top of that, the contest over where home is and who is entitled to live there, is – in the form of the current apparent crisis over migration – driving global political debate.
Sharing economy and companies such as Airbnb(https://www.airbnb.com/) are turning a private place such as home into something that you share with strangers. From essay -
A bedroom can become an income-earning asset when its role in our lives is reassigned by the click of a mouse on a digital platform.
Young people spend most of their time on devices, even when they are home. For them being online is a form of being at home. From essay -
Young people seem to be most at home when they are on – or perhaps ‘in’ – their phones, flicking between apps, surfing their social networks.
Even when people do activities such as eating food etc. they are their devices with them. From essay -
In contrast, the table in our family house has to be cleared of an Apple store’s worth of equipment before we can eat.
People are fearful of losing their homes because of technological advances or influx of immigrants(who are in fact looking a home for themselves). From essay -
this fear of losing our place in the world to the technologies we’ve created will overshadow the next few decades.
this easily provoked fear of an imaginary pristine national home being ruined by outsiders.
from technology to immigration, urbanisation and climate change – the idea of home is central.
We need an economic system that instead of fueling the fear of losing, creates an environment where everybody feels at home. We want good capitalism that takes everybody forward. From essay -
an economic system that helps them build a shared sense of home.
Capitalism needs once again to give people an orderly sense of home, rather than pitching them into insecurity, as if anything they have might be taken from them in a moment.
We need a new kind of shared home economics, of home-making and building. The route to power to change society starts at home.
A really good read and makes you realize why you like your home so much.