Sunday, May 22, 2011

Building Ecotopia: Intentional Communities, Part 2

by Chuck Hall
If you are interested in joining an intentional community, you might want to first meet as many of the people there as possible. Make sure you can get along with everyone first before making a commitment. Over half of intentional communities fail within a year of their founding, largely because of differences among members, so a little tolerance goes a long way. When shopping for communities, watch out for people who don’t seem to respect the opinions and rights of others. As the saying goes, “You don’t really know someone until you’ve lived with them.”
In many, if not all, intentional communities, members share resources and responsibilities. They usually are self-governing and have some sort of democratic governmental body. Many are communal in nature, not holding individual property. In most cases, all members of the community own the land on which the community is built in trust, and there are no individual property rights in terms of sale or ownership. The usual formula is that the homeowner leases the property from the community if the community doesn’t own all housing outright.
All members of an intentional community are expected to share the workload and to contribute to the community. Some are stricter than others regarding these rules. Before joining a community, it’s a good idea to know exactly what’s expected of you so there are no later.
These days, living in a community whose primary focus is sustainability is seen as the domain of aging hippies or religious cultists or social outcasts. The roots of the movement in its current incarnation began in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, so perhaps there is an element of truth to this perception. I think sometimes that the more conservative-minded people of the world see intentional communities as some sort of political statement or an idealistic dream rather than anything that could be put to practical use. That's unfortunate. People tend to forget that barely more than a century ago, most of the communities in this country were sustainable in part if not as a whole. In fact, some conservative groups, like the Amish, still live sustainably in intentional communities to this day. If our ancestors could manage to live in a sustainable way with the technology they had a century ago, surely we could manage to do so much more comfortably now, regardless of our political or religious affiliation.
I don't see sustainable living as the exclusive domain of people with a more liberal leaning, either. I know that such a lifestyle is often seen that way in America, but I think that's unfortunate. Granted, sustainability is more likely to be favored by those who tend to be more liberal (and I count myself among them), but since that is the case at this point in our history, I think liberals have the responsibility of demonstrating to the more conservative elements of society that caring for the planet isn't a political agenda, but a more practical and necessary way of life. Environmentalism shouldn’t be a partisan issue. So if you’re thinking about an intentional community, try to keep an open mind as you investigate the possibilities.

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