I recently watched an episode of the FYI Network‘s new small-home reality show, Tiny House Nation, a show hosted by renovation experts John Weisbarth and Zack Giffin. Weisbarth and Giffin travel the country helping families design and build tiny homes. The homes can be in the city or the country, mobile or stationary, but they have to be smaller than 500 square feet. As I watched the episode, in which John and Zack help a Tennessee family of three squeeze into a 172-square foot home, I realized the tiny house movement has lessons for Seattle.

It has been written ad nauseam on this blog and elsewhere that Seattle is in the midst of a major housing crunch. Part of the solution is to allow more housing supply, as Smart Growth Seattle has repeatedly pointed out (and if you haven’t already, watch this explanatory video then go sign the petition). But an equally salient point is that we also need those new houses to take many forms and many sizes; detached single family, apartments, rowhouses, cottages, etc. This not only creates options for buyers, but also expands the range of housing prices, which allows more people to find the right home at the right price.

Unfortunately, the Seattle City Council made this a little harder when it legislated small-lot construction recently, which will discourage the construction of smaller homes. And it is in the midst of creating microhousing legislation that will likewise add barriers to the construction of this non-traditional housing option. Many people in the city oppose these non-traditional small-lot homes and microhouses, and the sentiment behind it is not complicated: these homes are different-looking

When neighbors say they are opposed to a housing project because they think it will “change neighborhood character,” what they really mean is that they don’t want the project to look different than their house and the houses already in the neighborhood. And if you live in a neighborhood full of 2,300 square foot homes (the U.S. average), then a 300 square foot tiny house is certainly different. But different doesn’t have to be bad. In fact, when it comes to smaller-than-average homes, I would contend that different is very, very good. After watching Tiny House Nation, I jotted down four reasons why small homes are superior to large homes:

1. Living small means reevaluating the things you own and deciding what’s important enough to keep and what isn’t. Did you know the U.S. has a $22 billion storage industry? That is a sign that something is wrong with the way we are living and the amount we consume and waste. Living large induces a behavior of hording and collecting. We live in big homes with lots of space, so we tend to fill that space with stuff. With a tiny house, that just isn’t an option.

2. Living small is more environmentally friendly. Less house means fewer trees chopped down, less energy to light the home, heat it and cool it. And if everyone lived in smaller homes on smaller lots, we would consume far less land than we currently do.

3. Living small promotes an active lifestyle and community engagement.  The latter would require that your house be in a dense area where lots of people also live (which excludes the couple from the THN episode, who lived in the Tennessee countryside). Nevertheless, if you live in a very small home, you will likely find yourself outside the home more than in it, as there is just less to do if you live in a smaller space. As much as Americans value their privacy, it wouldn’t hurt to increase our engagement with the outside world. This public engagement is implicitly discouraged when we build big homes with lots of amenities and entertainment options indoors.

4. Increased financial independence. This one is a no-brainer. One of the major factors that determine housing cost is the size of the home. You would realize big savings by deciding to live in a home a fraction of the U.S. average. Remember, in Tiny House Nation, the one requirement is that the home be no bigger than 500 square feet. The beauty is that you could either save all of that money, or put it back into your smaller house to get better bang for your buck. The Tennessee family built a 172 square foot home (!) and as such were able to pay it off all at once, forgoing a mortgage altogether. That is certainly an extreme example, but even a willingness to return to 1950’s-level homes, which averaged under 1,000 square feet, would reap major financial dividends for homeowners.

Seattle would be wise to not only allow smaller homes, but also actively encourage it. Considering that the minimum allowable lot size is 5,000 square feet in single-family zones, this currently isn’t happening. Big homes are a product of the suburban form. As soon as we started fleeing cities, we started building bigger and bigger, and why wouldn’t we? There was certainly plenty of countryside available for us to stretch our legs. But frankly, the suburbs are exactly where big homes belong.

In an urban environment, where space is at a premium, building small is a more sensible use of land and it’s better for the environment. The goal of the four points above is to remind us that homes aren’t one-size-fits-all. Instead of castigating Seattleites who want to live small, whether in a detached house or a multifamily unit, we should be celebrating their decision and encouraging more small-home development.

Instead of dehumanizing microhousing dwellers for wanting to live in small quarters, perhaps we should look in the mirror and ask ourselves who is really in the wrong. Right now, would-be small-home dwellers have limited options. They shouldn’t. Let’s make sure the Seattle City Council knows that we value diversity, and that we take housing affordability and environmental sustainability seriously. Let’s encourage all housing types in our neighborhoods, even the very small ones.