It's actually a relative luxury to live in a car. Living in a car is more expensive than, say, living on a cot in a group shelter.

If we were most concerned about maximizing efficiency, we'd all be living in dense urban environments, using shared public transportation, etc. Most people would sleep in something similar to a Capsule Hotel.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel

Right. I am saying that it seems not desirable to live in Capsule hotels, cars, shared shelters. We can do better than that. Why move in that direction?

I feel ya. I have three thoughts:

1. Could view it as a cultural thing. For example, some cultures might embrace minimal personal space. And, the media keeps talking about the "tiny house movement."

2. Everything is relative. I personally opted to buy a smaller house than I could afford, and I generally try to live minimally.

3. In general, it's better for the collective good (less waste) to move in that direction. That said, technological advance might some day allow every human to live in a McMansion.

I grew up in a neighborhood with large houses and "horse lots" and I always dreamed of living in the apartment block in the next neighborhood over, because I had no one to play with, and the "poor kids" over there were always together.

See I can totally get behind what you are saying. Or at least most of it. Tiny houses require a lot of external infrastructure to make work. Again, a few people camping out in Golden Gate park is not an issue. Thousands would be.

Also remember that there isn’t a big difference between tiny houses and trailers. Imagine turning SF into a trailer park.

But there is a huge difference between a minimally viable shelter (electricity, plumbing, standing room, privacy) and a car or a capsule. Where exactly do you have sex? Vomit when sick? Keep a pet gold fish? Cook? Poop? All of that is possible in 400 sqft apartment and not possible in a car. So it’s not quite relative.

The tiny house movement is because people can't afford regular houses so they build glorified sheds on whatever scraps of land they can afford. Cities are breeding grounds for disease primarily because of the lack of personal space.

What is dystopian about not forbidding it. I didn't suggest we force everyone to live in cars, I suggested that it shouldn't be illegal.

The long term effect is that it allows for landlords who own parking spaces to charge what is currently charged for a small apartment, charge for small apartments what is currently changed for large ones, and so on. SF already has a housing problem. This would invite more people in without actually adding proper housing. How many hundreds of thousands or millions of people would do it? Have you thought about the plumbing issues associated with adding people without bathrooms? One person roughing it in a car and using public facilities is ok. Several thousand is an annoyance. Snowball that to few hundred thousand and you have a shit river.