Exactly, cottage rentals for income. To supplement farming and other ventures, anyway.
I'm lucky that my work is 99.9% remote, so as long as I can acquire a stable internet connect I can continue to work out there if needed. Existing entirely in the woods is incredibly appealing.
I don't come anywhere near close to meeting the requirements for intentional communities. Chronic illness is a real bastard. I don't need much and the quality of my life could so easily be improved by just a little help from others, but everyone - even intentional communities - is caught up in focusing on how much others can help them. What I can give is less tangible, and therefore dismissed.
I don't want to abandon society but I do recognise we'd all be far better off if we lived in ways which were less isolating. Every person/family for themselves harms us all.
A huge problem is that most neighborhoods and houses aren't facilitating community.
You don't need a commune or a cult as OP was joking.
I live in a house where one of the apartments is used communally by all the other residents of the house and it changes so much. It doesn't have a functioning bathroom so the landlords couldn't give it up for rent. But it has a kitchen, a balcony etc.
If you've ever heard of WOOFing that's a great place to start. It's a work trade program I did years ago, tons of farms around the world. You get room and board, just work the farm for a short term. I traveled across Canada doing that years ago and ended up staying on one for 2 years in the discovery islands off the coast of BC. One of the best times in my life. Now I live in downtown Toronto, wondering why I ever came back ahaha
Not saying this is you, but I feel like a lotta people who wanna live in the country also want all the city amenities - internet, garbage pickup, municipal sewage, etc.
To me, the problem isn't cities, it's late stage capitalism - gentrifying neighbourhoods, driving rents beyond reach, displacing communities. Plus its zeal for car-focused infrastructure, conspicuous consumption. All that stuff.
Anyway communal life is very appealing - I long for my college days of living in a house full of peers. Even if i'm off-base with my capitalism ruins the city argument, I think we'd all do better at coping with modern life with a wider support network.
I hear they are growing more popular in the bay area? Gideon Lichfield, outgoing editor-in-chief at Wired, mentions he spends half his year living in a commune of sorts and would like to do it full time in this podcast.
I live in San Francisco. It's not particularly "new" as the interview implies. Housing costs have been outrageous here for decades, so the degree to which apartments/housing are now unaffordable is only a reflection of the already ludicrous cost of living. Group housing is a "Bay Area thing" because it is solution to outrageous rents many cannot afford to pay alone. In some neighborhoods where it's possible for people to go in on a share situation in one household, it works, but it's actually becoming more difficult to find not more common, due to gentrification in tons of once affordable areas and the rise of things like VRBO and AirB&B gobbling up space which once existed on the long term market.
Thanks, I had no idea it had been developing this long. While Toronto area prices have been ridiculous for a while, I feel like we're only now hitting an inflection point where we might start seeing arrangements as you describe. There's tons of unoccupied or under occupied properties due to airbnb as well.
It's a beautiful dream! Almost a decade ago my family and I left the city and bought land with some other folks. Now it's just us out here in the wilderness, others are welcome but most people can't leave the city.
We got out of the city before door dash, grocery delivery, etc. so we don't even know what we're missing when we trek over a hundred miles to the Costco. I'd imagine that makes it easier!
Very often I would like to abandon my life in reality and become a part of an ideal world which I have imagined. It is surprisingly easy to become part of a rural cult (look up "intentional communities") so it's a backup plan I have in mind if necessary, but with people we're going to be dealing with a different version of the same set of issues. We as a species are nuts.
I used to live in a housing co-op and loved it. That being said you are going to have to deal with people intimately in that kind of living situation, so quality of life is greatly influenced by how well you mesh with the others around and things can change.
see if there are any community gardens in your area. they’re basically what you’re talking about, although usually only the land owner and/or farm manager lives there. my favorite one around here also has a rotating volunteer position who lives on site.
My dad did it back when he was a hippy.
He still talks very fondly of the time he spent out in the Arizona desert all those decades ago.
A piece of me would like to drop out of society and live in solitude.
While I lean towards being a loner, I realized that I am probably mostly a hybrid.
I enjoy some human interaction, but also love being alone to do whatever the fuck I want.
To me a commune would be too intimate and I think would end up being like a small town type of scenario which doesn’t appeal to me.
Abandon society - yes. Commune - JFC no. Vagabond gypsy caravan? Possibly, but only if there are werewolves and mysteriously sexy tarot card casters involved.
The Spanish tried this in the 30's. It was a part of the Spanish civil war and is an interesting read. I'd also recommend On Anarchism by Noam Chomsky which goes more in depth. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Revolution_of_1936
Probably hill zones: the land is easier to work than mountains, close to the plains (where there are natural water reserves) but still high enough to have lower temperatures
Not really, no. The idea of living in a small community makes me feel nauseous and panicky, and the more remote the commune the more intense the aversion.
But I wouldn't mind some sort of arrangement between some others who also like the idea of being off-grid but who loathe the idea of being in a small community, where we'd be off in the wilds with a LOT of space between us, but still come together occasionally to help each other out with various things, or be available be radio or whatever.
Similarly, the idea of being part of a nomadic group seems quite appealing to me, especially if more people join along the way and others dip in and out.
I talk about this a lot - mostly tongue in cheek (mostly) - and my partner always calls me the Unabomber afterwards, or asks when I’m publishing my manifesto.
I’m not a people person and society seems to be getting worse, plus I love rugged living and being outdoors. I can dig it.
I feel pretty happy in a city where I feel welcome and the neighborhood is fun. I got my family and friends around, and my bf only lives a short drive away :)
From Biblical Babylon to modern scientology
The problem with cults, at least according to me / Is that it’s so hard to see the purpose, meaning or point in them / And they’re never any fun, but still, people keep joining them
If I were younger I'd be looking at Mexico. Elevation and arable land can be found. Aboriginals would have survived if not for guns. And I think it will be a long time before the US ruins them like they do all over the world. I believe you can pretty much survive with 1acre per person in the commune. At least according to Fukuoka Masanobu.