Years ago, they had what were called "SRO" (Single-Room Occupancy) apartments. These often had shared baths or showers on each floor.

These all went away by the late 60s in New York. They wouldn't be legal now. For one thing, buildings, or floors, were restricted to either men or women. And they didn't allow children, or more than one person/room. But they allowed people just getting started--working clearing tables, or washing dishes, etc--to be able to live near where they worked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy

> "Neighborhood groups in Seattle have criticized new micro apartment SRO units, arguing that they "harmed community character and provided ... inhumane living conditions; due to these concerns, the city passed regulations that outlawed micro apartment/SRO construction."

Annoying. I lived in a SRO (I just called it a studio apartment with a shared bathroom) for 3.5 years that was run by a co-op apartment building. This was in Seattle. Having a shared bathroom was an annoyance (shared between 4 men - never more than a sentence said to two of them) but I was more than happy to put up with it versus having to deal with roommates. It was also cheaper than having roommates in a variety of houses that I looked at. I had more space than all those rooms for rent I looked at. I often wish I could've kept that kind of housing when I moved to the bay area because everything here is so outlandishly expensive just to get your own bit of space and that housing was so cheap for me.

I lived in two of these in Madison, WI. I'm not sure if was legal, but my landlord rented each bedroom in half a house individually. Four men, one bathroom, beer cans in the shower (Why?), but the bedrooms all locked individually and we weren't mutually responsible for each others' rent.

Second one was a former HoJo parked while awaiting condo conversion. Imagine a hotel room stripped of all furniture, with a single kitchen per floor. Had to wash my dishes in the bathtub, but otherwise it worked for me.

Dorms are essentially that. Not sure why that is illegal and dorms are fine.

EDIT: just looked it up, xenophobia of course. New Yorkers didn't like immigrants living in Manhattan in 1955.

They still exist in many parts of the US, and many of them don't have the kinds of restrictions you mention.

These still exist in San Francisco. In fact one of my junior co-workers lives in one.

Doesn't this already exist in communal living places like Ollie in NYC?

Not quite. Ollie provides kitchens, along with other luxury amenities, which makes their price point still pretty high with the cheapest apartment being ~$2800/month.

> Why does a pod need a kitchen and bathroom?

Basic human dignity? Being forced to share an intimate thing such as a bathroom with strangers or depending on strangers not eating your food/trashing your stuff or not being able to feed yourself because another person is cooking a 5-rounds-meal is not something that should be acceptable in a developed nation.

As someone who has actually spent a few years in this type of living arrangement, having a communal bathroom when it is clean and there is no line was just fine for my dignity, and vastly preferable to having no house or spending 3+ hours and several dollars a day to commute.

I also have spent time in such an arrangement and let's keep it at "you're fucked when two or more people have diarrhea".

I lived in a college dorm for four years and I don’t consider my human rights to have been violated in the process.

I mean, it's affordable living, obviously there's going to be trade-offs just like there's trade-offs when you opt for a 1 bathroom home or apartment vs a 2 bathroom, a place with dedicated parking vs no dedicated parking, or personal laundry in-house vs external laundry facility.