Singapore: The Reluctant World Capital of Tiny Homes

We admittedly have something of a tiny home obsession here at The Atlantic Cities, what with Emily Badger admitting her desperate love for photos of tiny homes, Sarah Goodyear discovering a supersmall backyard bungalow in Brooklyn, and all of us generally ogling a conceptual apartment of just one meter square. But these are small homes on a small scale. To see tiny residential development writ large, meet the housing market of Singapore.

The city-state has become a hotbed of super-small housing in recent years, as developers have gone on a building spree of what have derisively been called "shoebox units." These small apartments – most 500 square feet or less, and often housing half a dozen people – are on their way to dominating the housing market in the city. At the end of 2011, there were 2,400 shoebox units, according to Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority. By the end of 2015, there will be more than 11,000. Home sales in Singapore hit a three-year high recently, mainly due to the purchase of these very small apartments. And with scarce land space and rising home values, smaller is sometimes the only way people can afford to live.