Downsizing the Australian dream: why families are trading houses with back yards for apartments

Joh Murray lives in a smaller-sized apartment in Collingwood with her husband and two daughters, Matilda, three, and Ella, nine months. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian

The questions began when Joh became pregnant with her first child. They only got more frequent with her second.

“People start asking, ‘When are you moving? When are you guys getting out?’” she says. “They just assume you can’t live in an apartment any more.”