They can't live without each other

From the NY Times:

They have no children, no linear career histories, no readily disposable savings. The four men, all heterosexual, approaching 40 and never married, have lived together for 18 years, give or take a revolving guest roommate, cohabitating in spaces like an East Village walk-up, a Chelsea loft and, now, a converted office space in Queens.

Their latest home, which they have nicknamed Fortress Astoria, takes up the second and third floors of a slate gray concrete block building with floor-to-ceiling windows on 31st Street. The setup is ideal for four bachelors. Bedrooms do not share common walls, and there are communal spaces both upstairs (huge television, sofa) and down (kitchen). There is a lovely garden out back tended by Mr. Theerakulstit.

The apartment presents itself as a mix of man-child fantasy and discerning urban sophistication — Peter Pan meets the man cave. Action hero figurines, many still in their boxes, are displayed over the doorways, while film snob DVDs (by directors like Akira Kurosawa or Preston Sturges) line the shelves. There are expensive Mac computers in the bedrooms, and the kitchen holds an impressive array of spices (turmeric, pink peppercorns, cardamom), not one but two mortars and pestles, designer Japanese knives and a seltzer-making machine.

But dinner on a recent night was takeout pizza and garlic knots, served on paper plates. And in one of the downstairs bathrooms, a chopstick serves as a toilet paper holder.

Sociologically, the men represent the apotheosis of two trends in American life. While Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg may be promoting the idea of tiny apartments for singles, the most recent census figures suggest that many people do not want to live alone; they prefer or need the company: The number of roommates in nonfamily households in New York City increased by more than 40 percent between 2000 and 2010.

In NYC, it actually is illegal for more than 3 unrelated people to live together. Whether this makes sense or not, I'll let you decide.

Some people love living on top of each other

From the NY Times:

Doua Moua, 23, played a menacing gangster in a Clint Eastwood movie, but Mr. Moua swears he really is a nice, gentle and rules-abiding fellow. At least he was until he moved to New York City and unwittingly slipped into a world of lawlessness.

From left, Doua Moua, 23, George Summer, 30, and David Everett and Jasmine Ward, both 21, are among six people in a four-bedroom apartment in Hamilton Heights. “It’s part of New York City culture,” Mr. Moua said.

Mr. Moua lives with five roommates. And in New York, home to some of the nation’s highest rents and more than eight million people, many of them single, it is illegal for more than three unrelated people to live in an apartment or a house.

The law, for decades part of the city’s Housing Maintenance Code, is little known, widely broken and infrequently enforced. Three citations have been issued since July, according to the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

When the law is enforced, it is usually because of a complaint from a neighbor or because inspectors spotted a violation while responding to a maintenance problem. The violation is rarely written up unless it is accompanied by a host of others. Rarer still are the tenants who call up the city to turn in their landlord.

The lax enforcement might not be a bad thing, since a sizable number of the city’s denizens, especially its penny-pinched younger residents, have found living with more than two others a financial necessity. According to the Census Bureau’s 2008 American Community Survey, nearly 15,000 dwellings in the city housed three or more roommates who were unrelated to the head of the household. Experts say that number is almost certainly underreported.

Mr. Moua, who played Spider, a bandana-clad villain in “Gran Torino,” never thought twice about moving into the immaculately renovated four-bedroom apartment in Hamilton Heights that half a dozen people call home. The place is lined with track lighting and has two bathrooms. His room costs $850 a month.

He could live by himself in a studio in an outer borough for that much. Silly people.