catalyst wrote:what communities have you spent time with? they are all very different.
Years ago I was a very frequent visitor to Lower Shaw Farm. It no longer runs as a community, but up until a few years ago it operated as a small community of three or four families, plus a few occasional others, in a listed farm house that was rented from the council. They were all lovely people, but personnel changes brought conflict, and the long term stalwarts eventually all moved out leaving one person and her children living there. Eventually the place was abandoned, so one of the original families moved back in, but had found the previous conflict so distressing that they vowed never to have any other permanent residents there with them.
I was also part of The Community Project in their formative stage, while they were looking for premises. We viewed several large country houses that may have been suitable to buy communally, but the decision was finally made to buy a large former hospital in Sussex. They seem to have made a great success of this, but it required a lot of people to work together to make it happen. I didn't want to live with so many others, and I didn't really like the building or it's location, so I bowed out.
More recently I became friendly with a resident at Laurieston Hall, in SW Scotland, so became a regular visitor there for a few weeks at a time. A stunningly beautiful place, with 150 odd acres of grounds around a huge mansion, with their own loch foreshore, extensive woodlands, a hydro-electric generator powered from a burn that runs through the grounds. They keep a herd of cows and some pigs, make their own cheese, have a fabulous walled vegetable garden, and for a peppercorn licence fee they can cut all the dead wood they need in the adjacent Forestry Commission land... Amazing to think that this place was bought in the early 70s for £25k. Over the years the community has been through many changes, including 70s ideals such as shared incomes, pooled resources, and free love. It's not like that now, and people live there as individuals, but with a common interest in the daily running of the place.
I've been to a few others, too, to attend courses, for a holiday, or just to spend an afternoon visiting. Community life is undoubtedly more interesting than East Enders, and can be fun for a few days, but is not for me in the long term.