Commune

I’m no longer sure if I’m being ironic about this hippie commune on the site of the old Pfizer in Ann Arbor, or not. This happens fairly frequently (the whole ‘am I being ironic? I no longer know?’ thing), so I’m not too worried about it.

annacallahan alerted me to the presence of a co-housing community in Massachusetts, called mosaic commons. Co-housing is basically an attempt to do the commune lifestyle without the really annoying parts that make it always fail. You own your own house and a share of some large-ish common facilities. It’s a neighborhood association on steroids.

and suggest that folks with decent employment keep it and contribute money … while others would work on the infrastructure of the place itself. This is in line with some recent reading I’ve been doing. Paul Farmer is a crazy doctor who has been building a public health infrastructure in Haiti. One time, one of his multi-million dollar donors came down to visit him and suggested that he (the guy providing the money) would like to “leave it all” and come down to work in Haiti. Farmer’s response was “in your case, that would be a sin.” From each according to their ability. It just works better that way.

I like the large scale, because it would enable more significant projects … including a theatre, livestock, independent power generation, etc. Please note that I am deliberately only looking at what I would like right now. No research has been done on whether the stodgy old men who control everything would permit any of this silliness.

I suppose that what I really want is to found a small town, or perhaps an island nation. As said, though, it sucks that these cool communities have to be so far out in the boonies.

Hobbit houses are fully permitted, but when the walls slide in on you and your cat gets moldy … don’t come crying to me. I’m using concrete and drywall.