Free to Serve
Posted on December 7, 2008 byWhile in similar circumstances to his neighbors from Clan Super Size, our author replaces a desperate sense of scarcity and need for low-cost goods with feelings of hope and abundance.
Cohousing and Peak Oil Video on Peak Moment TV
Posted on September 15, 2008 byPeak Moment TV has a 30 minute video on cohousing featuring Bellingham Cohousing in Bellingham, WA.
Running for Office from the Commune
Posted on September 7, 2008 byAuthor: Nick Licata Published in Communities Magazine Issue #140 I opened my morning paper anxious to read the first article on my race for a position on Seattle’s City Council. I was living in PRAG House, an old mansion in the Capitol Hill neighborhood that a group of us had converted into a collective 25… Read More
Business and Well-Being
Posted on September 7, 2008 byAuthor: Tree Bressen Published in Communities Magazine Issue #140 Q: Historically, our group has felt fairly unified in our core values. Our business discussions and decisions rested on certain basic assumptions and expectations, including the importance of respecting others, welcoming feedback, accepting personal responsibility for feelings and actions, avoiding blame, and—to the best of our… Read More
Every Politician Should Live in a Commune
Posted on September 7, 2008 byAfter living in the PRAG House collective for 25 years before running for office, a Seattle City Councilor recommends that anyone entering politics consider experiencing intentional community first.
Searching for Republicans…and Other Elephants in the Community Living Room
Posted on September 7, 2008 byAn informal survey raises several compelling questions: Can communitarians
learn to focus on larger-scale politics as much as on internal politics? Should they? What’s proper political etiquette in community? And have you ever met a communitarian who is not left of center?
CNN – Simple Living and Eco Communities
Posted on August 25, 2008 byCNN has had two articles on community in the past few weeks, one on simple living and one on eco-communities in the UK. The simple living article profiles a woman at the Keystone Ecological Urban Center in Chicago. Keri Rainsberger isn’t rich. She works in the nonprofit world for a relatively low-profit salary. Yet, as… Read More
Aquittal in Ganas Shooting
Posted on August 6, 2008 byBecky James, the woman accused of shooting Ganas member Jeff Gross, was aquitted on all charges by a New York Jury. A woman was cleared of all charges Monday in the shooting of a commune founder nearly killed by a shadowy figure on the stairwell of his compound. The jury took less than five hours… Read More
Just Improved Communes?
Posted on July 31, 2008 byThe Times Online and the Sunday Times (of London) carried an article on both the utopian and the practical aspects of community living. The article features an existing co-housing developments in the UK, Community Project of South Downs. Benefits such as shared child rearing, help in times of health crisis, and shared resources are mentioned.… Read More
Green Living in Community
Posted on July 30, 2008 byWith oil prices on the rise, conserving energy is once again a hot topic in the news. Several articles have appeared recently on “green” living at intentional communities. Boston.com, WFAA-8 (the ABC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth), and the Baltimore Sun are among the news outlets running an Associated Press article highlighting market trends toward “green”… Read More
Obituaries for Kat Kinkade
Posted on July 29, 2008 byCommunity founder and author Kat Kinkade passed away in July at the age of 77. Kinkade was involved in the founding of Twin Oaks, East Wind, and Acorn, and published two memoirs of life at Twin Oaks, A Walden Two Experiment, and Is it Utopia Yet?. Several US newspapers, including the New York Times and… Read More
Cultural Integration in Vermont
Posted on July 18, 2008 byVermont Public Radio carried a news magazine about how intentional communities interacted with the surrounding rural culture in Vermont. The program description states, Our guest Tom Fels of North Bennington has just published a book on the network of communal farms that he was part of in northwestern Massachusetts and southern Vermont. Also with us… Read More
Preserving Farmland in Pennsylvania
Posted on July 12, 2008 byThe CBS News television affiliate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WHP-TV, reports on the green features of Hundredfold Farm, a new co-housing development in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The television spot is more in-depth, mentioning the farmland preservation, energy efficiency, and on-site waste water treatment achieved by the community. Hundredfold Farm is a co-housing community in Adams County. It… Read More
Sustainability Education at Findhorn Ecovillage
Posted on July 8, 2008 byThe Times Educational Supplement, a publication for teachers in the UK, has an article about the educational opportunities at Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland. The article starts with a brief nod to Findhorn‘s legendary gardens and faerie/angel culture but mostly focuses on the ecovillage’s sustainability education programs. Here’s an excerpt: The Findhorn Foundation is a charitable… Read More
Russian Religious Commune on ABC News
Posted on June 26, 2008 by3 Comments
ABC News’ Nightline did a 10 minute spot on a 5,000 person Russian commune of followers of Vissarion, a spiritual leader who claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Deep in the heart of Siberia’s birch forests lies one of the largest and most remote religious communes of the planet. More than 5,000… Read More
Christian Group Finds Power in Communal Living
Posted on June 24, 2008 byThe St. Petersburg Times has an article about a group of Christian intentional communities in St. Petersburg and Tampa whose mission is enhanced by simple, communal living. The article profiles one house in a group of communities calling themselves New Monasticism. (Note, at time of writing, their “map of communities” is broken) The residents of… Read More
Valuing Community in Traditional Neighborhoods
Posted on June 23, 2008 byThe New York Times carried an op-ed about forming community bonds in existing neighborhoods. A do-it-yourself approach, with no investment needed, other than time and effort. Peter Lovenheim writes, Why is it that in an age of cheap long-distance rates, discount airlines and the Internet, when we can create community anywhere, we often don’t know… Read More
Exploring Community in Western Mass
Posted on June 19, 2008 byThe Valley Advocate out of Northampton, MA has an extensive article on intentional communities in western Massachusetts. The author starts her exploration in a book about Total Loss Farm, a community formed in the late sixties out of the peace movement. Amid concerns for peak oil and sustainability she heads off to explore a smattering… Read More
Back to ‘The Land’ – Sixties Commune Reunion
Posted on June 17, 2008 byInsideBay Area.com has an article about a group of communities that formed in the hills near Palo Alto, CA in the late sixties and early seventies with such names as Struggle Mountain, Rancho Diablo, Earth Ranch and most famously, “The Land“. Most of these communes disbanded in the 70s but members reunited this year for… Read More
Milagro Cohousing Demonstrates Water Conservation in Tucson
Posted on June 15, 2008 byThe Arizona Daily Star has an article on water conservation that highlights water conservation expert Brad Lancaster of Milagro Cohousing. The article doesn’t have much about cohousing, but describes the water conservation techniques that Lancaster demonstrates at Millagro Cohousing. In the foothills of the Tucson Mountains west of town, the residents of Milagro Co-housing have… Read More
Texas Raid Stirs Commune Memories
Posted on June 14, 2008 bySlate has an article by Lee Ann Kincade where she reflects on the similarities of her upbringing at Twin Oaks and the life of children in the recently raided FLDS community in Eldorado, Texas. The children who were removed and the parents to whom they are returned seem like strangers from a distant world (or… Read More
Cohousing News From Around the World
Posted on June 11, 2008 byIn honor of the National Cohousing Conference which starts tomorrow in Boston, MA we’ll do a little round up of cohousing in the news lately. This will also help me catch up on the news as I’ve gotten a little behind lately, in no small part due to the success of cohousing and its mainstream… Read More
City of Cleveland Promotes Cohousing
Posted on June 10, 2008 byCity officials in Cleveland, Ohio hosted a workshop with cohousing architect Chuck Durrett to explore the possibility of cohousing in Cleveland. This is a great step for the aging industrial city that is also the home of a burgeoning ecovillage project. Most cohousing is initiated by future residents or more recently by professional cohousing developers,… Read More
The Marriage of Natural Building with Conventional Building
Posted on June 7, 2008 byO.U.R. Ecovillage has audaciously invited inspectors, architects, and regulatory officials to participate in their green building programs for the past eight years. In the process, they have fostered cooperative social connections–and received full approval for an eco-housing cluster.
Natural Building and Community
Posted on June 7, 2008 byThe communities movement and the natural building movement share the goal of forming meaningful relationships–with other people and with one’s own home. In fact, natural building practically demands community.
The Quest for Community
Posted on June 7, 2008 byTree Bressen traces her own path of exploration from commune to collective household, discovering that community isn’t always drawn in black and white.
Praise for Vibrant Neighborhoods
Posted on June 5, 2008 byWhile this blog generally focuses on intentional communities, we also try to promote creating community in whatever place you happen to live. These two articles caught our attention, as the extol the virtues of their authors neighborhoods and the sense of community they enjoy there. Ruth Ann Smalley writes in the Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette… Read More
Financier Got His Start on a Commune
Posted on June 4, 2008 byHere’s an interesting one from Investment News: a very successful financier who says “his best business lessons came from a commune”. Malon Wilkus now manages a $21 billion private-equity firm but he got his start at East Wind, an income sharing commune in southern Missouri. Returning to the United States and college in 1974, he… Read More
Cohousing and Bikes Help Make Davis, CA a ‘Friendly City’
Posted on June 3, 2008 byThe NBC Today show did a feature on the top 5 friendliest cities in the country and Davis, California made the list in part due to being the home of cohousing and the first city with a city-wide network of bike paths. The article doesn’t say much about cohousing but the video does. Davis is… Read More
Ecovillage Helping Start Charter School Focused on Sustainability
Posted on June 2, 2008 byTina Nilsen-Hodges, a resident of Ecovillage at Ithaca who is also an Ithaca College lecturer, is leading an effort to create a charter school focused on sustainability. The alternative high school, New Roots School, would not be a project of the ecovillage but might hold some classes there and be involved with the organic farm… Read More
