Because you are a New Yorker. Even Tiny Housers think living in New York is crazy.

> However, our quality of life dropped dramatically while we lived there (for about a year). I'm so glad I now can actually stretch if I want to, make food, setup a desk for each of us, etc.

All I can say to you is that clever design does exist which makes living in small spaces much less claustrophobic. It is just that in the UK and New York nobody appears to take those lessons to heart.

Things like this:

https://www.stashvault.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/secret...

And the use of unusual roofs like Mansard and Gambrel would transform many small spaces to be livable.

I have seen so many terrible designs in Britain. I think for half of them it is only explicable by a cat walking over the architects keyboard. The older buildings are nearly all fine so it is some modern retardation. Most of them have mold.

This is the product of mental illness:

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/624_351/images/live/p0/25...

Something really went wrong with society in the 70s and this is a visual expression of it.