As households continue to shrink in Manhattan, the options for rental apartments are slimming down, too – both literally and figuratively.

Earlier this summer, the Bloomberg Administration unveiled a design competition to create a rental building on a city-owned site in Kips Bay with “micro units” – a.k.a. apartments sized between 275 to 300 square feet – in an effort to help house the city’s growing population and changing demographics. According to the city, that means more options for New York’s rising population – 1.8 million one- and two-person households, to be exact – that are currently choosing from a pool of one million studios and one-bedrooms throughout the five boroughs. The new solution: passing a zoning resolution that allows developers to build apartment towers with units smaller than current regulations (about 400 square feet under city law) near and within Manhattan’s core business districts.

But even with the dwindling supply of affordable, quality rental housing, is building smaller better? I asked several in the multifamily industry that very question for an article on GlobeSt, and the majority of the responses were a resounding “yes.” The reason being? If you could rent more apartments, then you will have more income coming in. That’s an excellent concept for an owner/manager trying to increase revenue, and for developers, it presents an interesting design challenge to create a functional space under tight conditions.