This was a great read, thank you for such a thoughtful exploration, Elle.
I lived at a housing cooperative for 11 years with my partner. Despite many minor annoyances we stayed for such a long time because we loved being in a community. Cooking for one another and sharing meals was (mostly) a delight. That co-op has been going strong for decades, and I think it comes down to two things: there was a strongly established structure of shared chores and decision-making (frustrating as it was, often) and more importantly, there was zero attempt to have like-minded individuals joining.
What I loved about that place was the diversity you mention in your neighborhood- and the ability to make friends with people from all walks of life.
We left the co-op and are nomadic now, traveling and house sitting full time. And I've been thinking a lot about where and how we should be settling down, when the time comes. One dream is the off-grid utopia, I must admit. Not because I want to escape society, but because I want a garden and chickens and nature to live amidst- a swimming hole, and other amenities to share. I want to cook for others, and share meals again.
Your friendly neighborhood checks a lot of my boxes, and has given me an alternative to seriously consider- it would certainly involve a lot less hassle, in many respects.
Thank you so much for sharing your story Jasmine, this is very beautiful! There are a lot of ways to live in community, and it's worth examining all of the ways that make sense to do that!
This is right in line with where my head's been at lately. My family and I are currently living in Columbus, but we have close friends and family in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, California, Texas, Montana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia. My default is always to move toward a life where we can all be close by each other -- we often joke (or not?) about buying a huge plot of land and building dozens of tiny houses all over the place, so we can all be with each other forever. It sounds like a dream, like exactly what I want. I would only have to deal with the people I already know I want to deal with, and my kids could grow up with all of their best friends nearby, and our families wouldn't be so fragmented. It feels so healing, to imagine it.
But your exhortation to find the community that's nearby (and not necessarily exactly in line with you) is such a beautiful one too, and leads to true community. In our last apartment, we had neighbors whose lives and backgrounds were dramatically different from ours -- but when the shit hit the fan, who do you think we called to help us? (And vice versa.) That life is (maybe, at least sometimes) so much harder and requires so much more *work,* at least for an introvert/loner type. But it makes for a truer, "stickier" community. And, spiritually, there's nothing better than to learn to love the people you don't already love or think you can't love.
I read this post a week or so ago and have been ruminating on it ever since. Thanks for writing!
I have the very same fantasies about moving close to my sisters, how lovely that would be! I've even had fantasies about moving closer to people that are more like me (is there a community of forward thinking artists somewhere that I'm missing out on???) But when I look back on my best friends in life they were truly friends of convenience and then became more. And many of them aren't like me at all! And how fun that has been! And yes, how much better for society at large!!!! Thanks so much for noticing my little subtitle and for taking the time to comment and engage with this piece. It means the world to me that it stuck with you in someway.
This is so interesting. I heard somewhere the term “like-hearted” community, for exactly the reasons you say. We need our differences, and we to be able to get along. We don’t need to agree on everything. But like anyone who’s been in relationship with a narcissist knows, if we aren’t starting from a foundation of mutual respect (like-hearted), it can’t go anywhere happy.
As a fantasy writer, I’ve played with ideas of synarchy—all working/contributing for the benefit of all—like the ‘group of sovereigns’ idea, without coersion. One version came out as a village-centric collaborative gift-culture with semi-communal aspects, and a high value on consent. (What? You mean the story tension isn’t from a controlling patriarchy?) (Yes! It’s fantasy! If you’re going to imagine a new world, make it the kind you’d like to live in. We need examples!)
May there be many more ‘real world’ experimentations with creating healthy community!
Oh I am so with you on imagining better futures in fiction. We definitely need examples! I'm currently writing a utopian novel with a similar goal. That's how we will get to those real world examples...
I lead a community/network of practice and feel these are so important for knowledge in niches, it feels it's gone a bit too fractal, but when it comes to do to day living, everything mentioned here is the way.
Also, sometimes you need these disperse communities to find your people. This is how my son's relationships have developed, first online, then exploring meeting together in different locations. In an ideal world you could find your people close by.
I joined a co-working space that’s really helped cultivate a missing community in my life. Sure there’s more of a “like-minded” tone of the group, but mostly it’s geography specific because of the neighborhood it’s located in.
I’ve always said that co-working in-person is the best type of work because you have the energy, accountability, and creativity that comes with human interaction but none of the pressures of a work building. Plus, we’re able to build friendships outside of 9 to 5 much easier.
Too much sameness is often insulating. It’s important to view community as the entirety of humankind: this way, we safeguard everyone’s rights. Perhaps this should be expanded to include all sentient life?
Humanity has allowed itself all manner of horrors perpetuated against others in the name of perceived separation-religious, lifestyle, party, gender, etc.
Enjoy your travels!!! May they be all you desire them to be🌺
This is one of the best takes on present day community options that I’ve seen. I found my close friends and I would daydream about a perfect commune but wouldn’t want to live in the same state. On the flip side, choosing to commit to an area and start building a community of not necessarily like minded people, but still people who’d take you to the airport and vice versa, has been so so lovely.
My wife and I were huge fans of Friends. We bought CDs and DVDs and then subscribed to Netflix. When our kids got bored of NCIS, we rediscovered Friends for them, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then Chandler died!
We had to stop watching Friends because it reminded us of Mathew Perry's tragic end.
After reading this article, we decided to discuss who we would invite to join our Friends' commune. We ended up with at most five people. None were family—all family members were deeply loved—but we needed to let them stay in the US, Estonia, and Spain. Our commune would be established in the heart of Bombay (a special nook called 7 Gardens), and we wouldn't want anyone to join us for a long time.
This is a far cry from the kind of communities we grew up in, where everyone in the neighborhood celebrated everything together. In a tiny part of the city with more than 2000 families, there were many "Friends" communes with 50 families or more.
I feel that cable TV and short messaging services did us in long before the Internet became ubiquitous.
I love this exercise so much! Your particular nook sounds lovely, and I love that it invites your closest friends to live nearby, but while everyone can still choose their own lives within that. Very cool!
I was also very bummed with Matthew Perry died. Such a tragedy. That show will remain his legacy for sure!
It's hard to imagine being able to invite friends to rent in your same building or nearby, when apartments are so hard to find and competitive to get, here in Seattle and from what I've heard, in NYC. I wonder if the Fractal founders had bought their building and emptied it out, or how they did it? Sounds very nice.
From what it sounds like, their building was full when they moved in, but gradually their friends wanted to live closer and many tried to rent in the same building when various units became available. I think it helped that that particular building had a lot of 2-3 bedroom apartments (which participants shared) and had lower rent.
While I certainly agree that off-the-grid communes aren't the solution for everyone and that intentional communities can have problems, I also think these communities can work out and have a lot of value beyond people living next to each other. Intentional utopian communities have long been met with criticism that they don't "work" or are always "cultish" as ways to discourage people from trying any sort of alternative living arrangements. There are plenty of examples of these communities that have worked out and I highly recommend the book, Everyday Utopia for an in-depth discussion on this topic.
"Likeminded" and "diversity" can mean many different things. I certainly agree that we don't need more polarization and that many people have lost the ability to deal with others with different viewpoints. With inequality the way it is, then the people that can afford to live next to you are going to be very similar in demographics. Making friends with your neighbors is not necessarily going to make for a more diverse community than creating one where everyone has a specific goal in mind.
Also, many people value a likeminded community on certain aspects because they have a stigmatized or marginalized identity/status.
Living off-the-grid does not mean rejecting all of modernity. Very few intentional communities are actually off-the-grid. Almost all off-grid ones have indoor plumbing, fridges, and some of type of heating/cooling system. It is not a turn to the past and it's certainly not feudalism because there are no peasants working to maintain the land.
For me, I have been living in a small intentional community (co-own a house with 5 people) and am interested in something more involved in the future. I want this because I want to live a more nature-focused life. I also want to have a lower cost of living so that my community and myself don't have to work fulltime jobs that we hate. I want the freedom to be choosy and the ability to provide that opportunity to others. I still plan to be engaged with the outside world and have the hope that if more people do something like this then people will be able to be more choosy with everything.
If I can help others to not live paycheck to paycheck or to quit a job that has poor benefits, all while living a more sustainable lifestyle, then its worth it. If enough people do this then companies and structures will have to change to deal with a workforce that can opt out.
You are very right, there are a lot of ways these communities can still remain part of modern society, and be very beneficial to participants. There is certainly no "one size fits all" model when it comes to community, and I think we can all benefit from being part of the one that is right for us. I just wanted to present an alternative to those intentional communities being "the future" when there are others worth considering!
This feels like a razor's edge allegory, Elle. While I agree that our collective social contact can't be limited to exclusively like-minded folk, the idea of tolerance toward 'un-likeminded' folk borders on centrism. It's easy enough to assert that when it's strictly limited to playing guitar on the roof or having apple pie bake-offs. But when stupid old sociopolitical constructs come raging in, and they always do, tolerating centrist views toward the extremes of non-likeminded folk....like racists, or really anyone whose beliefs marginalize populations lower on the class ladder...then that doesn't work. I don't think retreating to communes is the right idea, but rather...the perceptions of those who embrace the 'all is one' perspective, ought to be the ones guiding society toward a unified whole. The reason the world is spiraling the drain is because too few people want to become like-minded...in that spiritual evolutionary way required for advanced species to survive their adolescence of intelligence. We can retain our individuality without shoving someone else off the ladder while we do it.
I'm certainly not suggesting we should all just be friends with racists. But I do wonder whether racists are created by being part of an insular "likeminded" community of people who reinforce those beliefs. There's a reason we say that people become "radicalized" by those around them. Maybe they wouldn't be if they were exposed to more unlikeminded people (including the people they say they hate)?
Sure, of course racists perpetuate themselves and reinforce fledgling racism by joining 'likeminded' groups who've already established their long term lenses for life. Through the arms of pop culture itself, most of those insular fringes are already exposed to 'unlikeminded' folk - read: less racist folks - through their entertainments, usually. Most racists cherry pick when to be racist and when it's okay to overlook their supposed hard stance of white tribalism, particularly when it comes to consumerism and recreation time. I hear ya, I do. I just don't know if repeated exposure to the encouragement of emotional maturity has worked for Americans so far. A more direct approach would seem to be necessary to elicit true, sweeping change. I am of course uncertain what that new approach might entail, only that what we've tried so far hasn't worked to the degree it needs to.
There’s a lot of truth here. The Costa Rican communes I visited were led by American “visionaries” with embedded inequities, loss of connection with the outside world, and social/psychological/financial challenges leaving. Many community creation startups have failed. Intentional = exclusionary and static.
There is value in the unplanned and chaotic. Exposure to diverse views and experiences creates balance and acceptance.
The challenge is lowering barriers to healthy communities rather than inventing a new wheel.
I've been thinking a lot about Dunbar's number, the concept that we can only really know and feel comfortable around 150 people. I've lived in big cities (Los Angeles) and in small towns, specifically a town of only two commercial streets and a dozen locals and expats from around the world in Costa Rica (Playa del Coco). In LA I had my tribe of poets and writers who I made time to see. They were a small little estuary in a big ocean of anonymous faces. But in Coco the whole town felt familiar. We didn't all have the same political background, or nationality, but we were all fairly cordial because we knew we were going to see each other over and over. I found myself feeling so much more relaxed about social situations there, but at the same time I also felt limited. I had very few writer friends in the community and I missed having my writer tribe, but at the same time, I learned way more about the views of people I didn't agree with, and I learned to be friends with those people. Then I would connect with my old LA writer friends via Zoom, so I kind of had the best of both worlds.
The best of both worlds makes sense to me. I have also craved more likeminded friends throughout my life! But that doesn't mean I want to run off and join a commune with them. I can't imagine that going well 😆
This was a great read, thank you for such a thoughtful exploration, Elle.
I lived at a housing cooperative for 11 years with my partner. Despite many minor annoyances we stayed for such a long time because we loved being in a community. Cooking for one another and sharing meals was (mostly) a delight. That co-op has been going strong for decades, and I think it comes down to two things: there was a strongly established structure of shared chores and decision-making (frustrating as it was, often) and more importantly, there was zero attempt to have like-minded individuals joining.
What I loved about that place was the diversity you mention in your neighborhood- and the ability to make friends with people from all walks of life.
We left the co-op and are nomadic now, traveling and house sitting full time. And I've been thinking a lot about where and how we should be settling down, when the time comes. One dream is the off-grid utopia, I must admit. Not because I want to escape society, but because I want a garden and chickens and nature to live amidst- a swimming hole, and other amenities to share. I want to cook for others, and share meals again.
Your friendly neighborhood checks a lot of my boxes, and has given me an alternative to seriously consider- it would certainly involve a lot less hassle, in many respects.
Thank you so much for sharing your story Jasmine, this is very beautiful! There are a lot of ways to live in community, and it's worth examining all of the ways that make sense to do that!
This is right in line with where my head's been at lately. My family and I are currently living in Columbus, but we have close friends and family in Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Maine, California, Texas, Montana, Nigeria, Kenya, and Ethiopia. My default is always to move toward a life where we can all be close by each other -- we often joke (or not?) about buying a huge plot of land and building dozens of tiny houses all over the place, so we can all be with each other forever. It sounds like a dream, like exactly what I want. I would only have to deal with the people I already know I want to deal with, and my kids could grow up with all of their best friends nearby, and our families wouldn't be so fragmented. It feels so healing, to imagine it.
But your exhortation to find the community that's nearby (and not necessarily exactly in line with you) is such a beautiful one too, and leads to true community. In our last apartment, we had neighbors whose lives and backgrounds were dramatically different from ours -- but when the shit hit the fan, who do you think we called to help us? (And vice versa.) That life is (maybe, at least sometimes) so much harder and requires so much more *work,* at least for an introvert/loner type. But it makes for a truer, "stickier" community. And, spiritually, there's nothing better than to learn to love the people you don't already love or think you can't love.
I read this post a week or so ago and have been ruminating on it ever since. Thanks for writing!
(And I love your subtitle, by the way!)
I have the very same fantasies about moving close to my sisters, how lovely that would be! I've even had fantasies about moving closer to people that are more like me (is there a community of forward thinking artists somewhere that I'm missing out on???) But when I look back on my best friends in life they were truly friends of convenience and then became more. And many of them aren't like me at all! And how fun that has been! And yes, how much better for society at large!!!! Thanks so much for noticing my little subtitle and for taking the time to comment and engage with this piece. It means the world to me that it stuck with you in someway.
This is so interesting. I heard somewhere the term “like-hearted” community, for exactly the reasons you say. We need our differences, and we to be able to get along. We don’t need to agree on everything. But like anyone who’s been in relationship with a narcissist knows, if we aren’t starting from a foundation of mutual respect (like-hearted), it can’t go anywhere happy.
As a fantasy writer, I’ve played with ideas of synarchy—all working/contributing for the benefit of all—like the ‘group of sovereigns’ idea, without coersion. One version came out as a village-centric collaborative gift-culture with semi-communal aspects, and a high value on consent. (What? You mean the story tension isn’t from a controlling patriarchy?) (Yes! It’s fantasy! If you’re going to imagine a new world, make it the kind you’d like to live in. We need examples!)
May there be many more ‘real world’ experimentations with creating healthy community!
Oh I am so with you on imagining better futures in fiction. We definitely need examples! I'm currently writing a utopian novel with a similar goal. That's how we will get to those real world examples...
I lead a community/network of practice and feel these are so important for knowledge in niches, it feels it's gone a bit too fractal, but when it comes to do to day living, everything mentioned here is the way.
Also, sometimes you need these disperse communities to find your people. This is how my son's relationships have developed, first online, then exploring meeting together in different locations. In an ideal world you could find your people close by.
I joined a co-working space that’s really helped cultivate a missing community in my life. Sure there’s more of a “like-minded” tone of the group, but mostly it’s geography specific because of the neighborhood it’s located in.
I’ve always said that co-working in-person is the best type of work because you have the energy, accountability, and creativity that comes with human interaction but none of the pressures of a work building. Plus, we’re able to build friendships outside of 9 to 5 much easier.
Yes! This is a great way to cultivate that!
Too much sameness is often insulating. It’s important to view community as the entirety of humankind: this way, we safeguard everyone’s rights. Perhaps this should be expanded to include all sentient life?
Humanity has allowed itself all manner of horrors perpetuated against others in the name of perceived separation-religious, lifestyle, party, gender, etc.
Enjoy your travels!!! May they be all you desire them to be🌺
Yes, exactly! Thanks Nicole!
This is one of the best takes on present day community options that I’ve seen. I found my close friends and I would daydream about a perfect commune but wouldn’t want to live in the same state. On the flip side, choosing to commit to an area and start building a community of not necessarily like minded people, but still people who’d take you to the airport and vice versa, has been so so lovely.
Thanks for sharing about your block party. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, and reading about your experience renews my desire to do it!
Oh you should! Highly recommend....
If I had enough friends to make it work, it would be cool.
I've been missing the sense of community I once had.
My wife and I were huge fans of Friends. We bought CDs and DVDs and then subscribed to Netflix. When our kids got bored of NCIS, we rediscovered Friends for them, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.
Then Chandler died!
We had to stop watching Friends because it reminded us of Mathew Perry's tragic end.
After reading this article, we decided to discuss who we would invite to join our Friends' commune. We ended up with at most five people. None were family—all family members were deeply loved—but we needed to let them stay in the US, Estonia, and Spain. Our commune would be established in the heart of Bombay (a special nook called 7 Gardens), and we wouldn't want anyone to join us for a long time.
This is a far cry from the kind of communities we grew up in, where everyone in the neighborhood celebrated everything together. In a tiny part of the city with more than 2000 families, there were many "Friends" communes with 50 families or more.
I feel that cable TV and short messaging services did us in long before the Internet became ubiquitous.
I love this exercise so much! Your particular nook sounds lovely, and I love that it invites your closest friends to live nearby, but while everyone can still choose their own lives within that. Very cool!
I was also very bummed with Matthew Perry died. Such a tragedy. That show will remain his legacy for sure!
A bit like the spice girls! Something about them not being in matching outfits with matching personalities gave them their mass appeal maybe...
It's hard to imagine being able to invite friends to rent in your same building or nearby, when apartments are so hard to find and competitive to get, here in Seattle and from what I've heard, in NYC. I wonder if the Fractal founders had bought their building and emptied it out, or how they did it? Sounds very nice.
From what it sounds like, their building was full when they moved in, but gradually their friends wanted to live closer and many tried to rent in the same building when various units became available. I think it helped that that particular building had a lot of 2-3 bedroom apartments (which participants shared) and had lower rent.
So cool that they had that opportunity and took advantage of it!
Totally!
While I certainly agree that off-the-grid communes aren't the solution for everyone and that intentional communities can have problems, I also think these communities can work out and have a lot of value beyond people living next to each other. Intentional utopian communities have long been met with criticism that they don't "work" or are always "cultish" as ways to discourage people from trying any sort of alternative living arrangements. There are plenty of examples of these communities that have worked out and I highly recommend the book, Everyday Utopia for an in-depth discussion on this topic.
"Likeminded" and "diversity" can mean many different things. I certainly agree that we don't need more polarization and that many people have lost the ability to deal with others with different viewpoints. With inequality the way it is, then the people that can afford to live next to you are going to be very similar in demographics. Making friends with your neighbors is not necessarily going to make for a more diverse community than creating one where everyone has a specific goal in mind.
Also, many people value a likeminded community on certain aspects because they have a stigmatized or marginalized identity/status.
Living off-the-grid does not mean rejecting all of modernity. Very few intentional communities are actually off-the-grid. Almost all off-grid ones have indoor plumbing, fridges, and some of type of heating/cooling system. It is not a turn to the past and it's certainly not feudalism because there are no peasants working to maintain the land.
For me, I have been living in a small intentional community (co-own a house with 5 people) and am interested in something more involved in the future. I want this because I want to live a more nature-focused life. I also want to have a lower cost of living so that my community and myself don't have to work fulltime jobs that we hate. I want the freedom to be choosy and the ability to provide that opportunity to others. I still plan to be engaged with the outside world and have the hope that if more people do something like this then people will be able to be more choosy with everything.
If I can help others to not live paycheck to paycheck or to quit a job that has poor benefits, all while living a more sustainable lifestyle, then its worth it. If enough people do this then companies and structures will have to change to deal with a workforce that can opt out.
You are very right, there are a lot of ways these communities can still remain part of modern society, and be very beneficial to participants. There is certainly no "one size fits all" model when it comes to community, and I think we can all benefit from being part of the one that is right for us. I just wanted to present an alternative to those intentional communities being "the future" when there are others worth considering!
This feels like a razor's edge allegory, Elle. While I agree that our collective social contact can't be limited to exclusively like-minded folk, the idea of tolerance toward 'un-likeminded' folk borders on centrism. It's easy enough to assert that when it's strictly limited to playing guitar on the roof or having apple pie bake-offs. But when stupid old sociopolitical constructs come raging in, and they always do, tolerating centrist views toward the extremes of non-likeminded folk....like racists, or really anyone whose beliefs marginalize populations lower on the class ladder...then that doesn't work. I don't think retreating to communes is the right idea, but rather...the perceptions of those who embrace the 'all is one' perspective, ought to be the ones guiding society toward a unified whole. The reason the world is spiraling the drain is because too few people want to become like-minded...in that spiritual evolutionary way required for advanced species to survive their adolescence of intelligence. We can retain our individuality without shoving someone else off the ladder while we do it.
I'm certainly not suggesting we should all just be friends with racists. But I do wonder whether racists are created by being part of an insular "likeminded" community of people who reinforce those beliefs. There's a reason we say that people become "radicalized" by those around them. Maybe they wouldn't be if they were exposed to more unlikeminded people (including the people they say they hate)?
Sure, of course racists perpetuate themselves and reinforce fledgling racism by joining 'likeminded' groups who've already established their long term lenses for life. Through the arms of pop culture itself, most of those insular fringes are already exposed to 'unlikeminded' folk - read: less racist folks - through their entertainments, usually. Most racists cherry pick when to be racist and when it's okay to overlook their supposed hard stance of white tribalism, particularly when it comes to consumerism and recreation time. I hear ya, I do. I just don't know if repeated exposure to the encouragement of emotional maturity has worked for Americans so far. A more direct approach would seem to be necessary to elicit true, sweeping change. I am of course uncertain what that new approach might entail, only that what we've tried so far hasn't worked to the degree it needs to.
There’s a lot of truth here. The Costa Rican communes I visited were led by American “visionaries” with embedded inequities, loss of connection with the outside world, and social/psychological/financial challenges leaving. Many community creation startups have failed. Intentional = exclusionary and static.
There is value in the unplanned and chaotic. Exposure to diverse views and experiences creates balance and acceptance.
The challenge is lowering barriers to healthy communities rather than inventing a new wheel.
I've been thinking a lot about Dunbar's number, the concept that we can only really know and feel comfortable around 150 people. I've lived in big cities (Los Angeles) and in small towns, specifically a town of only two commercial streets and a dozen locals and expats from around the world in Costa Rica (Playa del Coco). In LA I had my tribe of poets and writers who I made time to see. They were a small little estuary in a big ocean of anonymous faces. But in Coco the whole town felt familiar. We didn't all have the same political background, or nationality, but we were all fairly cordial because we knew we were going to see each other over and over. I found myself feeling so much more relaxed about social situations there, but at the same time I also felt limited. I had very few writer friends in the community and I missed having my writer tribe, but at the same time, I learned way more about the views of people I didn't agree with, and I learned to be friends with those people. Then I would connect with my old LA writer friends via Zoom, so I kind of had the best of both worlds.
The best of both worlds makes sense to me. I have also craved more likeminded friends throughout my life! But that doesn't mean I want to run off and join a commune with them. I can't imagine that going well 😆
A commune of like minded friends, that is a sitcom I want to see!