Communal living

Here's an interesting piece from today's NYTimes op-ed section, examining the contemporary appeal of communal living arrangements. When I think "commune," I think of free love, pot and an insufficient attention to personal hygiene. But that's a stereotype. There are all kinds of communal living arrangements. In "Crunchy Cons," I highlighted one of them: the loosely-organized intentional Catholic living arrangement that Rachel and Paul Balducci are part of in Augusta, Ga., (as were there parents before them). In the Balduccis' case, a bunch of like-minded Catholic families who wanted to grow up in something like a community got together, pooled their resources and bought a bunch of houses in a lower-income part of town. In a similar way, Phil and Leila Lawler up in Massachusetts relocated from Boston to a more rural area in western Massachusetts to live near a monastery, along with seven or eight other Catholic families who share their basic values. Leila once told me that you really need that kind of support if you want to raise your kids to hold onto their values.

Anyway, here's what caught my eye about today's Times story:

The new breed of cooperative living, however, is far from radical. In co-housing, the fastest growing segment, participants design their own subdivision with an emphasis on closely spaced, modest homes and Norman Rockwell-style social interaction encouraged by communal areas and pot-luck dinners. Eco-villages, many with solar-powered homes that are constructed with hay bales, are driven by an environmentally minded ideology. Residents are likely to avoid meat, wear hemp-fiber clothing and resemble the hippies of yore.

"There are plenty of people in the mainstream seeking an alternative to the alienation of suburban living, people who want more connection and community in their lives," Mr. Sirna said, as he prepared a stir-fry for three erstwhile strangers with whom he now shares a home and pooled income. "For them, it's not such a far-fetched idea to want to share resources and cooperate with their neighbors."

[snip]

Some say the time is ripe for a less atomized and wasteful existence. They cite an aging population that is seeking to downsize, the high cost of new housing and a surge in energy prices that will make old-school suburban life untenable.

Albert Bates, a lawyer from Connecticut who hitchhiked to The Farm, a commune in Tennessee, in 1972 and never left, says a flood of visitors seeking to learn about the 200-member community led to the creation of an eco-village training center that each year draws hundreds of people from around the world.

When gas hits $20 a gallon, Mr. Bates said, suburbia will wilt and Americans will flock to tight-knit, energy-efficient communities where they can walk or bike to stores that sell pesticide-free produce. "That time may not come for another 10 years," said Mr. Bates, 59. "But at some point people are going to look for alternatives."

The problem here, as the article in full notes, is that these kinds of utopian communties don't seem to last. I'm wondering, though, if that's because they were too ambitious in their separatist mentality. I, for one, would not be interested in living in a sort of "commune" as the understanding comes down to us from the 1960s, but I'd be quite interested in living in a development or intentional community as the Balduccis and the Lawlers have. In principle, by signing a petition in favor of historical district designation for the neighborhood I now live in -- a designation the city granted us a couple of weeks ago -- I agreed to give up some personal autonomy as a homeowner for the sake of preserving what Julie and I (and a majority of homeowners here) believe is the common good.

As readers of "Crunchy Cons" and this blog know, I believe the future for our sort depends on the creation of what Alasdair MacIntyre identifies as new ways of living in community to preserve our faith and values. Does anybody have any real-life examples, or at least ideas, for how ordinary people like me and thee might do this without signing up for something more radical than most of us are able or willing to commit to?