Intentional Community

[ragani]

I really want to create/participate in an intentional community. It has been one of my dreams for years, and one that I still want to see as a reality. Especially when(if) I become a parent. This would be such a great environment to be raised as a child.

My mom sent me a link to Dragonvale, an intentional community being developed in Main. We could so do something like this here is we could find the land (and in the bay area, that is a big if).

This concept of an intentional community has a lot of appeal, although it is not the reason I want to be part of one, and I am not sure that it is the kind I would want to develop myself.

What do you think, guys, can you imagine our very own sustainable community with a Renaissance Faire built in? And if so, what should we call it?

Comments

[ragani.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we are working on different definitions here. Let me outline quickly what the basis of what I want to be part of:

A community where a group of people intentionally live in a co-housing situation that operates with a mission to create a self-sustaining environment.

To help you better understand what I understand co-housing to mean, please check out The Cohousing Association of the United States, The CoHousing Company, and the description on the Cohousing Resources site. To quote that last site "Cohousing is NOT... There is no shared income in cohousing. Employment and business endeavors are privately organized. Common ideologies and charismatic leaders are generally not a part of cohousing. And of course, cohousing is not like a commune."

Sure, there are plenty of flakes and nuts attracted to places like Ren faire, but as satyrlovesong commented to your post:

"As to "fluffy-bunny, consequence-free neo-paganism", I haven't seen all that much of it. There are consequences within the pagan community as well. The consequences may not have a direct impact on things that motivate you, but I've seen several free loaders run out of communities (granted, generally over a period of weeks or months). One of these days, ask Ms. Prop about Duff. Or about Aaron. I don't know if she would also know about that chick that Lisa was with for a while. . . anyway, I've seen very effective policing methods within the pagan community."

[terpsichoros.livejournal.com]

Reading the descriptions over at the Co-housing site you linked to, I'd consider something like that, though I'm not sure my temperament is terribly well suited for it. It sounds like I thought it might (above), and I don't see any inherent problems with it.

The descriptions of Dragonvale make my skin crawl, though some of that is a matter of taste. I predict that if it is successful, it will remain a fairly small core group of residents - essentially a small, "intentional family"-run Faire and SCA venue. If the residential/communal group gets much larger, I suspect they'll either become much less communal, or they'll fail. There's a strong element of overplanning - they've got 14 guilds figured out even though they've only got six members? And check out the description of the "Wenches Guild".