Flexible Building Components Could Save Lives

Once extensive manufacturing innovation finally kicks in, flexible components might even make home ownership feasible with only an income of $12,000 per year. At least one can hope! Importantly, many different groups are closer to this level of income than it may seem, not to mention the fixed incomes of Social Security checks. Clearly, calls for "living wages" will continue, if our non tradable sectors are not able to build real wage potential via production reform.

Recall also, that $1,000 a month is a frequently cited basic income possibility, in the event of technological employment disruption. But what would basic income accomplish, if non discretionary needs are mostly out of reach? Alas, this level of income, significant though it may be for the provider, still leaves recipients too dependent on the assistance of others. Without a concerted non tradable sector response, millions could remain unable to create useful and productive lives for themselves. Indeed, deaths of despair often stem from such realities.

However, the pandemic provides a more straightforward example, how independent living made possible by flexible components, could save lives. As it turns out, the most dangerous transmission of the virus occurs via households where people regularly congregate under the same roof. According to medrxiv:

All identified outbreaks of three or more cases occurred in an indoor environment, which confirms that sharing indoor space is a major SARS-CoV-2 infection risk.

Even though transmission takes many different forms, repeated social interactions at close range is particularly dangerous due to increased viral loads. Consequently, healthcare practitioners often attempt to isolate themselves from family members, when risk of infection is exceptionally high. Yet being able to do so is not always easy. Indeed, some physicians make temporary living quarters in backyard tents, to mitigate the risks to their own families. At the very least, individuals sometimes loan recreational vehicles and travel trailers to healthcare workers, where zoning permits them to do so. Other communities are stepping in and providing hotel rooms for much needed isolation, as well.

Besides addressing these short term realities, flexible building components could also prove well suited for a longer term context. A recent Brookings article notes how the crisis only exacerbates the problems low income groups already faced, in their efforts to secure reliable employment and housing. All too often, when extensive virus transmission occurs under one roof, it is partly the result of individuals having doubled up with other family members, after they experienced difficulties tending to obligations on their own.

Not every community is willing to make room for mobility options in living and working needs, and NIMBY impulses will doubtless remain one of life's constants. Still, some communities may decide to take a new and constructive approach. Clearly, the same market potential which opens ownership capacity for a wider range of income levels, makes room for new definitions of dynamic community in the process. Should flexible building components be adopted in the near future, these ownership options could help create paths which lead away from the uncertainties of the pandemic. With a little luck, flexible housing manufacture might become one of the initial ways that societies overcome the economic uncertainties of pandemic times.