What is the Small House Movement?
The Small House Society (SHS) is the movement of people who want to simplify their lives by living in less space. So it’s really a wide range of people, in the United States and all over the world, from young families who have exchanged their large suburban homes in favor of small downtown apartments, to folks who have retired into RV’s and the open road, to movie stars who have downsized to small mansions. There are dozens of variations on this theme, more than you can imagine: people on boats, in attics, in treehouses. In our book, Little House on a Small Planet, we give about a hundred examples because we felt that was a minimum number to begin to describe the scope of the trend. What all small housers have in common is a belief that by giving up personal space, and the stuff that fills it, they are getting a better life. The Small House Movement has historical roots going back as far as the first Americans who lived in tents and small stone apartments, and Puritans and Quakers who
