Firstly, your typical shared space (dorm, apartment) is designed to be cheap and you probably hear your neighbors through the walls. This isn&#x27;t a requirement.<p>Secondly (this is more a theory), having a roomie is often just too informal to settle on and enforce social contracts for public spaces.<p>Yeah man, I&#x27;ll clean the dishes. (Never cleans the dishes).<p>Although in college, I used to have the apartment where people just showed up randomly and chilled &#x2F; did homework &#x2F; played a game for 10 mins and leave (or crash on the couch). They&#x27;d help clean the place, were free to leave some food in the fridge and such and were generally very respectful. Donate an N64 or a sound system to the cause.Turned out my roomie hated it and never said anything, but it worked well for me. I just don&#x27;t like it when people feel like a &#x27;guest&#x27; or I&#x27;m treated like a &#x27;guest&#x27;. It&#x27;s uncomfortable.<p>Nowadays it&#x27;s rude (and time consuming) to just drop by and I rarely see my friends on weekdays. Then they offer me drinks and such and theres a weird formaility to it that I don&#x27;t enjoy at all. I think we need a &#x27;third place&#x27;, effectively a community hangout where everyone feels they have some sort of shared ownership and you can also expect people to be there regularly. The closest example I&#x27;ve found is our local hackerspace, but the audience for that is somewhat limited.