My most extensive writing on how we live now is in the book by the same name, How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century. That book has been named as one of the 12 Nonfiction Books Every Woman Needs to Read, alongside books by authors such as Maya Angelou and Gloria Steinem. It was also named by Kirkus as one of the Best Nonfiction Books for 2015.
By the way, the picture is of a “pocket neighborhood” right here in Santa Barbara. It was designed by the visionary architect, Ross Chapin, who also wrote the book on the topic: Pocket neighborhoods: Creating small-scale community in a large-scale world.
Here are some other things I’ve written before and after the book was published.
Lifespaces: On the Importance of Our Places and Spaces and People
Families of choice are remaking America
4 questions to ask yourself when deciding how to live
Is this the missing piece in the happiness puzzle? (about the importance of our physical spaces)
How would you live if money were no object?
The joys of not doing what you are supposed to (about living your best life, not your expected one)
How to have a husband on the side (about putting someone other than a spouse at the center of your life)
The place of place in our lives
Is your ideal living situation different at different points in your life?
Sharing a Home with People Other than a Spouse or Romantic Partner
Living with other humans: Do you have what it takes?
Four single men: All hetero, approaching 40, living together for 18 years
3 benefits of having a home-mate: Guest post by Annamarie Pluhar
Meet the woman who created a Craigslist for single moms (About Carmel Sullivan, who created CoAbode, an online registry where single mothers can find other single-mother families who want to share a home and a life)
She loved her time alone but welcomed people from all walks of life into her home
Financial protections for friends who live together
Share a home? 7,000 people describe their ideal version of co-living
Who are those people living under the same roof? (about sharing a place with people other than a spouse or romantic partner)
Living Apart Together (LAT) and Living Together without Marrying
Why would committed couples live apart when they don’t have to?
Living Apart Together, Part 1: The importance of women’s wishes
Living Apart Together, Part 2: The importance of men’s desires
Living Apart Together: It’s not just for couples
Single, Anita Hill style: Long-term partner and separate homes
Apartners live happily ever after – in places of their own: Guest post by Sharon Hyman
7 kinds of marriages – and one awesome alternative
Just how alone do you want to be?
Keeping marriage alive with affairs, asexuality, polyamory, and living apart
Why so many partners want to be both single and together
Is cohabitation bad for you? Answers from a 6-year study
The top 10 ways couples have changed
Cohousing and Other Living-in-Community Lifespaces
What does a cohousing community look like?
The secret to balancing time alone and time together? (about cohousing)
How we live now: in community. Guest post by Marianne Kilkenny
Who is living in a commune – and who will be, in the future?
Nature, family, and friendship in an innovative lifespace (Victoria Garden Mews)
From the Great Depression, an innovative community still thriving
An inspiring lifespace for people who are homeless
Grown Children Living with Their Parents, Multigenerational Households, and Helping Across the Generations
What we all know that just isn’t so: Multigenerational families
The new life option that would have shocked me in my twenties
Why are so many young adults living with their parents?
8 ways 30-year-olds are different now than they were 40 years ago
What does it mean to live with your parents in your 20s or 30s: Part 1
Part 2: What does it mean to live with your parents in your 20s or 30s?
Why are millennials still living with their parents now that the recession is over?
Leaving home in 15 countries: How old are the grown children when they leave and how far do they go?
When raising kids, how much does a spouse matter? (About the Lewis family 4-generational household and the relevant social science research)
Parents, be careful what you wish for (Many parents want their children to marry but it is their single kids who help them most)
Why do single sons and daughters help their parents so much more than married kids do?
Not-So-Single Parents
The new committed relationship: For parenting, not romance
‘Single motherhood’ and the bigger, broader meanings of family and love
Single fathers: defying caricatures, connecting with kids
Not-so-single parent redefines home and family: Guest post by April McCaffery
Single parents and their children: Don’t believe the prophecies of gloom
Lifespaces for the New Old Age
The huge mental health advantage of 21st century seniors
Are you going to be an elder orphan? Part 1: The odds
Elder orphans, Part 2: What people are already doing to live well in later life
How are older Americans living — and how do they want to live?
Older people living alone: What’s the one way men do better than women?
Will you get to choose whether to live on your own?
Redefining Family
Who counts as family and why should (only) family count?
How families changed: What everyone knows and no one knows
The future of family lies in the hands of single people
Family in the lives of adults with no children: 3 creative ways of thinking
Does it matter if you are single with no kids?
Single, no kids: Family-relevant strengths
Our families – what’s missing? Guest post by Joshua Gamson
Radically new families and how they are becoming more ordinary
Mobility in the 21st Century
Are we really an increasingly mobile society?
If you live more than a few hours drive from mom, you are the exception
Writings Relevant to a Variety of Lifespaces and Life Choices
6 new ways we are living today
Beyond the nuclear family: New policies and practices needed for the way we live now
How to make life fair for everyone, not just those following the straight and narrow
Over time, are more people sharing housing or are more people living alone?
Is it healthier to live with someone?
Kate, Kay, and the single ladies, Part 1: Different experiences of single life across the generations by Kay Trimberger)
Kate, Kay, and the single ladies, Part 2: Experiments in living outside of a nuclear family household by Kay Trimberger)
How children live now compared to a half-century ago
What does TV tell us about how to live?
Ditch the fairytale – and monogamy?
When your personal, private choices enrage others
The cost of choosing not to have kids: Moral outrage
21st century experiments in living
[For lifespaces for some furry friends, check out this article from one of my sponsors.]
Other Thoughts about Lifespaces
Your perfect life: What would it look like?
Will owning a home make you happier?
Have single people stuck a nail in the coffin of the suburbs?
Can you know someone – or some place – in 2 seconds?
Seeing without being seen: The greatest place in the world?
Also see these separate collections on
How We Live Now: Redefining Home and Family in the 21st Century
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