I'd like to throw an idea to those who know better than I do.

Ever since I started living on my own I've lived in apartments, none of which had a backyard (one of them had a parking lot). None of my friends owns a house either. I'm the perfect customer for this and I'd love to do my own projects (two of which require a lathe!) but I simply don't have the space.

Is this just me? Or is the disappearance of the hobby garage a real phenomenon? A 3D printer is fairly limited in what it allows, but it also doesn't throw sawdust in the center of my living room.

This is generally what a makerspace is for. I don’t know what the (inter)national landscape is like for them, but I have a small 8’x8’ studio space at the makerspace in my city, which also has a full wood shop, metal shop, and tons of rapid prototyping tools (3d printers, vinyl cutter, etc). I live in a 1BR apartment downtown and the makerspace is in an industrial district that is a 5-minute bike ride away, and it’s basically my “garage”, just shared with 30 other studios and probably 200 non-studio members who come and go.