| You’re going to see a shift in the coming years due to inflation - more folks are already eating at home anyway. But the answer is because sometimes you do need a kitchen, even if it’s to boil some water or whatever or reheat takeout, or because your Mom is visiting and wants to make something. Sharing a kitchen is often a nightmare if you can’t control who else is sharing it - constant fights over dirty dishes being one example. They often get tied up exactly when you want to use them too. And having your own bathroom (the two are highly correlated as both require ‘wet walls’, and custom plumbing) is great when you want some privacy, are sick, etc. or have some safety concerns. It can get even more gross and disturbing to share those when you can’t control who you’re sharing with. It’s a common friction point to share a bathroom even with room mates. A lot of people (especially women) flat out avoid public bathrooms due to safety and ‘ick’ concerns. Imagine if the only toilet you could use if you woke up at 2am and needed to pee was a public toilet. There is nothing wrong per-se with marginal housing, except they tend to attract ‘marginal people’ that bring with them trouble that others don’t want to deal with if they can avoid it. It does help with homelessness and the like - but it tends to self filter into dangerous territory, because who is going to want to stay at a place where homeless people stay unless they are homeless themselves? Sharing them is always a step down in experience. It is always cheaper though, as the kitchen and the bathroom are usually the two highest maintenance and ‘most expensive’ rooms. Most folks stuck in those situations move out ASAP - think dorm rooms and barracks. Or homeless shelters. Singapore is extremely far along in the ‘eat out at restaurants’ side (it used to be, most Singaporeans ate out at least a couple meals a day), and even they have kitchens and private bathrooms in all the subsidized flats. |