We want to bridge divides to reach everyone.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.

A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website.

Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.

Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift.

An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.

Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.

A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.

Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.

A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.

The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.

In Phoenix, a developer built eight 740-square-foot homes that offer modern conveniences and a more urban location. 'Cargotecture' styles can also vary, offering more affordable alternatives to renters and developers.

Once thought of mostly as a utilitarian way to store cargo, developers across the country are increasingly embracing shipping containers for a new purpose – helping urban residents find affordable housing.

In Phoenix, a stack of shipping containers in an industrial lot has been transformed into eight apartments that embrace rather than hide their shipping past. Inside, however, the apartments made of two corrugated shipping containers have been reconfigured as modern homes with epoxied wood floors and white walls.

"It doesn't even feel like a shipping container. It's also insulated really well," Patrick Tupas, who is in the Air Force and signed a lease along with his wife told the Associated Press. "It just feels like a regular apartment."

A one-year lease is $1,000 a month, slightly above Phoenix’s average rent of $898 for a one-bedroom apartment, according to the rental site RentJungle.

For developers, the new "cargotecture," which has spread to neighborhoods in Las Vegas, Detroit, Washington, D.C., and as far as Denmark, offers both a way to cater to younger residents and baby boomers who want to live closer to the cultural attractions of urban areas and a cheaper, eco-friendly way to quickly build more housing. Some homes mask their industrial origins, while others include it in the homes' design.

"In Denmark, there's a lack of 20,000 student homes," Michael Plesner, cofounder and partner at CPH Containers, which is building a village of student homes in Copenhagen out of shipping containers, told TakePart.

"If scaled up, container villages can actually help push down the price on the general housing markets of cities, which would benefit everyone," he said.

About 1,000 unused shipping containers are available for purchase in the United States, where used models can sell for $1,000 and up, Barry Naef, director of the Intermodal Steel Building Units Association told TakePart.

For many middle-class residents hit hard by sky-rocketing rents in urban areas such as San Francisco, New York, Boston, and Seattle, the apartments could possibly represent an alternative option.

Middle-income residents are increasingly feeling the effects of a growing housing crunch, as the Monitor’s Jessica Mendoza reported in detail earlier this month:

Public-service workers, police, teachers, ... and other middle-income residents – lacking the welfare support and housing assistance of the very poor – are being hit particularly hard. They are increasingly being forced to make a fundamental choice: keep the jobs they have and settle for interminable commutes and smaller living spaces, or relocate to more affordable cities altogether.

Because the homes can combine multiple shipping containers together, that may provide more flexible options for people who are skeptical of the growing "tiny home" craze, where the average home ranges from 100 to 400 square feet.

Washington's Brookland neighborhood has had a four-story housing cluster made of shipping containers since September 2014, while containers in Las Vegas are featured in a downtown retail complex.

A company called Three Squared Construction has spent $14 million on new projects that involve shipping containers in Detroit. The company opened the city's first-resident development made of repurposed containers in April 2015. It's currently used as a showcase, while the top floor is periodically rented out.

In Phoenix, all but two of the eight units are occupied; one is pitched as a vacation rental. Architecture firm StarkJames has plans to build 12 more container houses in downtown Phoenix. These homes will be stacked three stories high. But other developers have been skeptical.

“We work with a lot of other developers," architect Brian Stark told the AP. "They always ask 'How are the garbage can homes going?'"

Get stories that empower and uplift daily.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.

But the company is undeterred. It's taking the jokes in stride, naming its downtown developer The Oscar, after the "Sesame Street" character Oscar the Grouch, who could be considered a container-dwelling pioneer.

This report contains material from the Associated Press.

Monitor journalism changes lives because we open that too-small box that most people think they live in. We believe news can and should expand a sense of identity and possibility beyond narrow conventional expectations.

Our work isn't possible without your support.

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Already a subscriber? Log in to hide ads.

A selection of the most viewed stories this week on the Monitor's website.

Hear about special editorial projects, new product information, and upcoming events.

Select stories from the Monitor that empower and uplift.

An update on major political events, candidates, and parties twice a week.

Stay informed about the latest scientific discoveries & breakthroughs.

A weekly digest of Monitor views and insightful commentary on major events.

Latest book reviews, author interviews, and reading trends.

A weekly update on music, movies, cultural trends, and education solutions.

The three most recent Christian Science articles with a spiritual perspective.

Your subscription to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. You can renew your subscription or continue to use the site without a subscription.

Return to the free version of the site

If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.

This message will appear once per week unless you renew or log out.

Your session to The Christian Science Monitor has expired. We logged you out.

Return to the free version of the site

If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.

You don’t have a Christian Science Monitor subscription yet.

Return to the free version of the site

If you have questions about your account, please contact customer service or call us at 1-617-450-2300.