Thoughts for March 27, 2022
Good afternoon. Today’s topics are small housing units and directed energy weapons.
Small Housing Units
A microapartment is a small apartment. The exact dividing line between a microapartment and a conventional studio apartment can vary by context, but it is typically around 300-400 square feet. A microapartment contains its own bathroom and kitchen. A single-room occupancy (SRO) differs in that several SRO units share full kitchen and/or bathroom facilities. Small housing units such as microapartments and SROs have mostly disappeared in the United States, because of zoning regulations and market conditions, but concerns about high housing prices have revived interest in small units. In an expensive market, the difference between a normal studio and a microapartment can be several hundred dollars per month.
I have yet to find a good analysis of the market potential for small units, but it looks limited. There was a market analysis in Ocala, Florida that found that there would be demand for 17-21 market rate microapartments in downtown. Ocala is a city of a bit over 60,000 people, and not too close to any large cities. Extrapolating to the US as a whole, there should be demand for at least about 90,000 market rate microapartments, though I suspect the number would be much higher if the analysis was based on a large, high-demand city. I could imagine that actual demand would be in the hundreds of thousands of units, maybe the low millions. This study from the Urban Land Institute finds that there is significant pent-up demand, but it doesn’t give hard numbers.
SROs can also be built for market rate housing, but they are often used for subsidized housing or to provide shelter, along with other services, for people who would otherwise be homeless. They are cheaper than other kinds of housing, which makes them an attractive option for services with limited budgets; see for example legislative proposals in Dallas and Simi Valley.
Density brings about several negative externalities—both perceived and real—which is the main reason that small units have nearly been regulated out of existence. Several studies, such as this one, find that SROs bring greater crime.
If small units are going to be a good solution for high housing costs, then two things need to be the case. First, there has to be significant market demand. Second, the negative externalities of small units have to be well managed.
Directed Energy Weapons
A directed energy weapon is any kind of ranged weapon that uses focused energy, such as electromagnetic energy (lasers, microwaves), particle beams, or sound. Such weapons are under active development and are already in limited use.
This report by the Congressional Research Service provides a fairly good overview of where we are at now. For FY2021, appropriations for directed energy weapons included about $850 million for research and development and $300 million for procurement. This study from the Air Force Research Laboratory goes into more depth as to the outlook by 2060.
As I understand it, the main challenges for developing effective laser weapons are the level of beam power, adaptive optics for atmospheric turbulence, and power consumption. Because the laser systems themselves and their power systems are bulky, it seems like this bulk will be the main bottleneck to deploying them. The major applications, from easiest to hardest to deploy, are base defense, naval artillery, anti-ballistic defenses for vehicles, aircraft weaponry, and satellite weaponry. Yes, that means that any equivalent of the Strategic Defense Initiative is a long way off.
From the Air Force report, the main use that the military is thinking about is to counter UAS (unmanned air systems, or drones). The idea that a cheap drone could attack a ship or a tank is something that the Pentagon is deeply worried about. Microwave weapons, utilizing a different segment of the electromagnetic spectrum, is envisioned as a defense against swarms.
The United States finds itself in a new conflict—“democracy versus autocracy” as is often put—and it is important to stay well ahead of adversaries militarily. Directed energy weapons are an important component of doing so.