You know the saying “You can’t pick your parents?” Well, in traditional housing scenarios, you can’t really pick your neighbors either. Sometimes that can turn out for the best: you meet someone new and become fast friends who can depend on one another for more than the occasional eggs and flour. But, sometimes it can turn out for the worst: higher-than-normal fences become a top priority in the household budget, and a landscaping contest has you going to bed fuming and scheming nightly.

While you may not be able to hand-select a neighbor that meets all of your established “great neighbor” criteria in an intentional community, the word “intentional” sums it up: you can count on living next to and living with people who share a common vision, whether that vision be nutrition-based, religious-based, lifestyle-based, politically-based, environmentally-based, you get the idea. And at the core of that vision, and possibly the overall vision in itself, is the intention to go that route together, as neighbors and as a community.

Particularly in our region, where green is a way of life, New Life Journal often talks about intentional communities as sustainable communities, where land might be preserved in a land trust or housing shared to limit development. And while that’s the case and a crucial step in living and building consciously, equally needed today are strong connections and strong community. So, we asked residents of intentional communities for a page out of their diary, to share with you the interactions they experience each day. Below, you’ll find a look at different types of communities—some on the grid, some off and some close to town, some out a ways—with many different types of inhabitants. And, you’ll find the developer’s perspective, too, to see what a changing social paradigm looks and sounds like for our modern world.

A Day in the Life of…Jill Tieman, Westwood Cohousing, Asheville, NC, four and a half year resident with involvement in the community before it was built, summer resident at Earthaven Ecovillage

Briefly describe your community. How is your community structured?
We have a large shared Common House with a commercial kitchen and dining facilities, guest rooms, laundry, den, children’s playroom/loft, shop, and office spaces. There are 25 homes with about 50 people living here, ten of which are children. Westwood is a townhouse community with clustered houses. Our parking lot is on the perimeter of the community. We have a homeowners’ association and use a consensus decision-making process. Many decisions are made in teams, with bigger decisions brought to a larger community process.

All of us who live here have ample opportunities to play a part in the community through joining a team, and we recommend that people join at least two. I participate in one main ongoing team and two ad hoc teams. Each of the main teams has a charter that outlines guidelines for their responsibilities. A lot can be learned about us by looking at the list of teams: Architectural Review, Board of Directors, Community Council, Children’s Focus, Common House, Finance, General Maintenance and Housekeeping, Homeowner’s Mediation, Kitchen and Dining, Landscape, Nominating, Reconciliation, Sales, Technical Maintenance, Tools, and Woods and Wildlife. Besides these ongoing teams, the ad hoc teams work on topics that include Aging at Westwood, Agreements, Bee Keeping, Bike Shed, Bridge Newsletter, Cohousing Awareness, Emergency Procedures, Forum, I-26 Liason, Laundry, Peace Garden, Sustainability, Westwood Works, and Westwood Contact Person.

How do you/your family interact with others in your neighborhood?
I live in a “community within a community.” I enjoy sharing my home and knew that if I had housemates I could afford the larger house available within the community at the time of my purchase. I have had delightful experiences creating a “community” home. I get to know my housemates pretty well—almost like having an extended family—and they get the experience of cohousing. I don’t know my neighbors as well as my “community household,” of course, even though I appreciate being familiar with all of my neighbors.

The neighbors I tend to know better are the ones that my daughter hangs out with. She loves having friends in the neighborhood, especially so many close to her age. I co-parent with my daughter’s father who lives outside of the community, so my daughter does not interact with the community kids as much as the kids that live here full time do, but she has a lot of spontaneous play dates!

If you had to pinpoint the biggest difference between living in your community and in a typical urban or suburban neighborhood, what do you think it would be?
Before moving here, I had to drive places for my daughter to have play dates. Now, she walks to meet nearby neighbor kids. I also had a lot more responsibility keeping up a big yard/garden on my own, and I was relieved not to have that job when I moved here, but instead have the opportunity to choose a team to work with on neighborhood needs.

Are there any challenges or ways you have had to adapt to live in this intentional community?
I grew up with fourteen brothers and sisters and am programmed to live in a large community framework. Without this wiring, I imagine it would be a big adjustment for anyone. Even with this wiring, I have had to make adjustments between what my ideals are and where I can bend. People seem to go through a honeymoon phase with the newness of community living, then go through a reality phase, finding that it’s is not all a bed of roses. If they survive the reality phase, they just might be able to make it in a community.

What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?
The possibility of networking and the shared resources; ultimately, the collective that is created by this kind of set-up.

A Day in the Life of…Arjuna da Silva, Earthaven Ecovillage, Setween Lake Lure and Black Mountain, NC, co-founder, seven year resident with involvement in community since its beginnings in 1994, airspinner (secretary) of the association, elder

Briefly describe your community. How is your community structured?
Earthaven was designed by and for people with a deep desire for transformational movement out of “old paradigm” ecologically, socially and spiritually constricting patterns.

Earthaven is both an intentional community, in the sense that people live here because community is a main lifestyle priority for them, and also an ecovillage, in that our stated intention is to be an “eco-spiritually-based, village-scale living demonstration of holistic values.”
At the practical level, Earthaven is a build-your-own kind of place.

Members buy into the community by leasing home and business sites and developing them according to high standards of environmental responsibility. We’re off the grid, and we usually have to be fairly cautious about the use of power and water. Although we are in the challenging position of having to clear some of the forest and move some of the earth in order to develop these sites, the wood and clay are immensely valuable, readily available resources that play major roles in our architecture and economy.

Our decisions are made through a fairly formal consensus process in which all new members receive training. The process has gathered our own unique set of complexities and flavors over the past thirteen years. We envision over 150 people living on more than fifty homesites when Earthaven is fully developed. Our neighborhoods are distinct in size and character; some are a stone’s throw from the Village Center, others are a fifteen-minute walk. My closest neighbor will be voice distance from my windows.

How do you/your family interact with others in your neighborhood?
My personal life is significantly intertwined with my neighbors’ and with friends from other neighborhoods: we share resources as much as we can, and our relationships provide rich soil for intimacy and for working on our “stuff” with one another. Potlucks, movie nights and birthday parties, as well as Equinox and Solstice celebrations, happen often.
There aren’t many young children at Earthaven yet; only seven live on the land at this time. They are mostly home-schooled, and as they mature, they pretty much have the run of the community.

If you had to pinpoint the biggest difference between living in your community and in a typical urban or suburban neighborhood, what do you think it would be?
The fact that everyone who’s a full member of Earthaven has the opportunity to contribute a direct and equal voice to the decisions and activities we set in motion may be the primary characteristic of our social reality and a strong common bond. We have all agreed to follow extensive ecological guidelines and adopt and maintain attitudes of universality and inclusivity, another qualitative difference. And knowing when we walk between our homes and neighborhoods that we are walking on our own commonly owned land has a profound effect on our lives.

Are there any challenges or ways you have had to adapt to live in this intentional community?
Yes, of course! The choice to be close (and kind) to the Earth requires a significant commitment to maintenance protocols that impact a day’s schedule of responsibilities, as well as the cost, content and timeline of major projects. As a conscientious citizen, I show up for many community meetings and activities that impact my alone time and leisure. I’d say learning to live with so much direct influence on my life of others’ needs and preferences along with all the time given over to self-governance and maintenance have made time alone and on my own projects very precious.

What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?
Geographically, it’s unusually flat for our property, and well located—at the end of the road but fairly close to the Center. Also, my neighbors are all folks who have lived outside the mainstream for most of our adult lives, so there’s a breadth of experience and depth of commitment to innovation and improvisation here.

A Day in the Life of…Rob Pulleyn, Wise Acres Community, Madison County, NC, almost ten-year resident

Briefly describe your community. How is your community structured?
Wise Acres Community started with an old farm and the idea of creating a new community. We chose Wise Acres as a name to indicate that we’re not centered on any particular philosophy: we saw the creation of a community as an act of joy tinged with cynicism. We are vegetarians and carnivores, twenty somethings and old codgers, commuters and home workers, couples and singles, gays and straights, religious and atheists. We like that. We didn’t want to live in a community of clones of ourselves. We are, of course, all knee-jerk liberals.

There are thirteen of us living in seven houses that form a south facing crescent around several large open hills and backed up by mountain slopes. We each own our individual homes and some land around them, but the remainder of the land, about fifty acres, is owned in common by the community; none of our views will ever change.

Creating a community is a slow process. We spent about a year and a half working on the legal documents, restrictions and land planning. We focused on potential problems and calamities and let the positive take care of itself. It worked. We ended up with a very long, unpleasant document, but it’s already helped us through some rough spots. It took another couple of years to find the right folks to fill out the community. We screened out folks who wanted a weekend home and those idealists who thought community was “groovy,” unaware of the amount of work and compromise it requires.

How do you/your family interact with others in your neighborhood?
As a group, we work on the roads, the community garden, keep the fields mowed, and return errant neighborhood cows. We have rotating officers and worker bees. We have irregular community meetings at which we make financial decisions (“Is it time to re-gravel the entrance?”), settle any problems between ourselves, and have endless discussions of land use. Our decisions are by majority, but we reserve consensus for big decisions.

We also have Soups on Sunday, potluck dinners sometimes with a movie, and, importantly, gin and tonics after a hot workday. The frequency of meetings waxes and wanes, and we can go a month without seeing each other.

Are there any challenges or ways you have had to adapt to live in this intentional community?
One of the unfortunate lessons of creating a community is that they’re not cheap. To avoid land speculation, we required new members to build a house within two years. The effect was that folks with very limited financial resources couldn’t buy the land and then pay for a home, no matter how modest. In addition, banks won’t loan against the value of community land.

What is your favorite thing about your neighborhood?
Living in a community requires consciousness of one’s neighbors, of the land, and, we believe, the larger community. It’s work. It’s frustrating. And it’s wonderful!

Developing a Neighborhood
We asked founders and developers of area neighborhoods to share their definitions of a neighborhood/community and to explain their philosophies and motivations when designing and building. You may want to keep tabs on these creators and developers, as they could have another community project in the works perfect for your next home.

A neighborhood, at Earthaven, is a grouping of residences and possibly businesses that share common infrastructure, such as roads, water systems, power, etc. Usually, but not always, members have chosen to be near others with whom they share lifestyles. A community is really a group of anything that is interrelated. In terms of habitat, community includes all human and non-human inhabitants within a specific natural or created area. The word “community” does evoke a certain feeling of connectedness, mutuality and support, which at Earthaven I feel is not always apparent but is always present.

What motivates us to create neighborhoods that bring people together is our basic philosophy that right relationship and resource sharing are at the core of sustainability. Without bonded community, the human situation most often deteriorates. We are not developers in the commonly used sense of the word, but rather are experimenters in sustainability.
—Arjuna da Silva, co-founder of Earthaven Ecovillage (www.earthaven.org)

For residential development purposes, we define a neighborhood as a cluster of dwellings close together with design that encourages mutual support and sharing among residents. The degree of sharing and support can vary widely from one neighborhood or community to another, depending on both the architecture and the relationships that people build over time.

We design and build for sustainability in terms of both the built environment and the social/governance daily functioning of residents. Our work includes concern for sipping clean energy rather than guzzling toxic fuels, beauty, health support, low-maintenance, safety for walking and playing, conviviality, communications and governance skill development and a rich set of shared on-site facilities, resources and services.
—Elana Kann and Bill Fleming, Neighborhood Design/Build (Westwood Cohousing founders, LLC), 15 Glenn Bridge Rd., Suite D, Arden, NC (www.westwoodcohousing.com)

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