Where do you want to live?

[Lainey]

This is a cool idea, and in my opinion, when done well, it can be another form of social security.

It is evasive and elusive though. Here in ColumbOhio I was part of, and in some senses a leader, in an group that was trying to put together a co-housing, cooperative living community. We met for a year, watch documentaries, had guests speak about there time on communes, and we checked out big houses in neighborhoods, old hotels, old apartments, etc.

What I came to realize is this:
1. It usually takes some cash! And the more complicated your dream, the more cash you need.
2. Most people come in with some wild-eyed pipe dreams about 10 families buying a city block and turning it into an ecovillage. This, in my experience, goes nowhere.
3. The other issue is that everyone is very finicky about their living space, so finicky that no one wants to live with them and they don't wanna live with no one either. All this despite their desire for communal living.

What I kept advocating for was something realistic and doable on a budget.
We find a big house, rent it, then live together with a mission statement and some reasonable ground rules. And we make a focus of the whole thing saving money and being there for each other for support.

Again: Went nowhere but Nowheresville.

Ultralight,
reminds me of a true story of an older cranky bachelor engineer. Years ago he worked for the same Megacorp that I just retired from and I didn't know him, so this is second-hand.
He owned a house in a cul-de-sac in a decent neighborhood. When the house next door came up for sale, he bought it and rented to a family he liked. Then proceeded to do the same with the remaining 5 houses in the cul-de-sac, so he owns all of the property and the only people who live around him are those he hand-selected. Closest thing to an intentional housing situation that I'd heard about that was actually successful