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| Entrance to Freetown Christiana, Copenhagen |
-Image by Neptuul, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
I must say I had quite a dim view of manufactured communities. After reading about and watching the videos about Prospera, I immediately thought of all the spectacular failures – those that have ended in gunfire and flames, fraud or mass suicide. Then those that kind of just whimpered away like New Australia in Paraguay or some of those noble alternative lifestyle experiments of the 1970s, but looking just a little more deeply some historic ones have been so successful that they have become part of the furniture. I am thinking here of the Amish in Pennsylvania, the Mormons in Salt Lake City in the USA and even the Exclusive Brethren, now the Plymouth Brethren, here in Tasmania. They aren’t all religious communities either.
An older, secular forerunner belongs here too. The Kibbutz Movement in what is now Israel, began in 1909 and was built on collective ownership, shared labour, and in the early decades, communal child-rearing. At its peak in the late 1980s, kibbutzniks made up around 3.5% of Israel's population. Today there are still some 270 kibbutzim -home to roughly 130,000 people, though most have long since moved away from strict collectivism toward private property and paid work.
The Artists
At least three spring to mind here too. Worpswede in Lower Saxony, Germany, founded in 1889, still has well over a hundred artists living there today. Closer to home there is Montsalvat, established by Justus Jorgensen on the outskirts of Melbourne in 1934, and Dunmoochin, the artistic wildlife sanctuary created by Clifton Pugh at Cottlesbridge in the same area in 1951. (Pugh was Jorgensen’s student). Both of the latter inspired much of what came after, including our own bush building efforts.
It wasn’t just the original and rediscovered architecture and the bold vision either. It was about free love, anti-establishment thinking and original ways of relating to the land and society. The art was almost a by-product of that freedom. Both places are still lovely, still devoted to art, still worth visiting — but perhaps not quite the way that their founders envisaged.
Early 1970s – The Great Experiments
Much the same fate has befallen some of the forerunners of the Great Wave of experimentation which took off in the 1970s. I am thinking here of Findhorn on the Moray Firth in the North of Scotland, the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales or Christiania in Denmark.
Findhorn began as a spiritual-nature -based project begun by Peter and Eileen Caddy and their friend Dorothy Maclean in a Scottish Caravan Park in the 1960s. Its remarkable produce grown with ‘spirit guidance’ – though locals say it had more to do with applying horse manure and according to one book I read, seaweed, soon attracted followers and many visitors.
When I visited in about 1971 it had already become quite rigid and was on a much more commercial footing. By 1999 it was still attracting around 5,000 visitors per year who were taking a range of courses. Although it has since faced economic difficulties in the wake of the Pandemic, it has also drawn in a number of like -minded enterprises such as the Phoenix Press, a Steiner school and the Scottish branch of Trees for Life. It has found fame and recognition as an eco-village, with reputedly the lowest environmental footprint in Europe.
The Centre for Alternative Technology was founded in a disused slate quarry in Snowdonia in 1973. I saw my first solar electric lighting there many years later and what’s more it was done with home made solar panels. I was very excited about this, because one of our downfalls in our own back-to-the-land experiment was the absence of power and particularly the absence of electric light. Like Monsalvat, Dunmoochin and Findhorn, it has also become a Foundation and runs courses in Environmental Education. Although it too is experiencing financial strain, its accredited graduate programs continue to be very highly rated.
Christiania
In 1971, young people encouraged by journalist Jacob Ludvigsen began to occupy abandoned army barracks on the fringes of Copenhagen and was called Freetown Christiania and became something of a Green Light district, where both residents of Copenhagen and tourists came to purchase drugs. Although challenged by city authorities as early as 1976, nothing was really done until after a number of drug overdoses occurred in 2007 and fights began to erupt between rival gangs of drug dealers seeking to take over the trade. Residents sought to halt the trade by closing “Pusher Street” the main outlet, allowing only cannabis to be sold and urging Danish citizens not to purchase drugs in the area. However, the drug pushers did not follow Christiania’s very democratic rules and nor did drug sales benefit residents.
After more violence broke out in 2022 this with the result in serious injury to a policeman, something which happened only very rarely in Denmark, residents agreed that they needed the city’s help to get rid of the drug dealers. The Kingdom of Denmark then reasserted its rights over the property. Ironically, the residents of Freetown Christiania now had to form themselves into a Foundation to be able to organise finance and buy a small proportion of the property back, while the rest was to be reclaimed for a housing development.
Nimbin
Among the Australian survivors – conceptually at least, is Tuntable Falls, one of several which emerged from the first great Aquarius Festival held in Nimbin in NSW in 1973. Festivalgoers did not see why the good vibes created by the festival should end and pooled their money to buy a tract of rainforested land to build a community. Despite various ups and downs due to changes of government - sometimes left, sometimes right, it retained the common goal of somehow living together in constellations other than the nuclear family.
While similar attempts to do so in Tasmania have not fared as well -possible due to the climate, since many were founded with the aim of self -sufficiency and environmental awareness, I would say they have not so much failed as evolved. In the case of Teapot, one of the more famous ones here which fragmented, the ideas were carried forward in various ways by its members. By way of example, not a few members moved close by and bought land next door to one another. Others went on to pursue more individual interests such as permaculture or to form an all-female community in the same area, so I would not call it a failure as much as a sorting -people working out what they wanted and how much structure they preferred.
Meanwhile, similar experiments were going on not only all over Australia but in many other parts of the world including the USA, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and other parts of Europe. While many such free -flowing communities have failed, others have formalised their aims and redefined themselves as intentional communities.
Intentional Communities
Many of the original communities have rebadged themselves as
Intentional Communities to distinguish themselves from the earlier free-flowing anti-establishment hippie communes, especially the more hedonistic ones or
those involving drugs and so on. According to the Foundation for Intentional Community, they are defined as follows:
“Intentional communities are groups of people living together by choice, sharing values, resources, and responsibility. From cohousing to ecovillages, they foster deep connection, cooperation, and purposeful living."
These vary almost as much as the individuals within them. Some continue to focus on spirituality or personal growth. Others are about housing affordability, sustainability, or about living in nature, growing food, self-sufficiency, or to be with like-minded individuals. There are for example, communities for gay people, seniors or disabled people, who all seek more than an atomised urban existence, or some combination of any or all of the above. While many are based in the country, very successful communities have also been created in urban settings. Some are open. Some are closed. Some offer freehold housing, while others remain leases or rentals. Many also offer various kinds of courses. They now generally also come with more rules and stricter entry requirements. All are currently enjoying a major upswing.
Main Focus Areas
· Eco Villages
· Nature and Conservation
· Housing Co Ops
· Food, Self – Sufficiency, Permaculture
· Health, Well Being, Spirituality, Personal Growth
Most of these are self-explanatory, but a few notes and examples may be in order. Note the considerable overlap between categories.
Eco Villages
Eco Villages are about sustainable architecture using natural materials, recycled materials, harmonising with their surroundings and preferably creating a very low environmental impact. While there may or may not be some community activities or obligations, residents usually own their own homes.
A long lived and typical example is the Twin Oaks Community in Virginia. Begun in 1967. It is currently made up of around 85 adults and 15 children and based around co-operation, sharing, including income-sharing, egalitarianism, non-violence and ecological sustainability. Now classed as an Eco Village, members work around 38.5 hours a week in the community’s business enterprises or activities such as gardening, cooking, childcare or milking cows. In return, members receive food, housing, clothing, healthcare and personal spending money. While there is no cost to join, there is a very long waitlist and a list of membership requirements.
Nature-based Communities
Nature-based communities usually involve proximity to nature and activities such as conservation and rewilding. Upscale Crystal Waters Permaculture Village in New South Wales, established in 1987 and home to 250 people in 83 private dwellings with communal lands and facilities, is rehabilitating degraded farmland and protecting wildlife.
Housing Co-Ops
Housing Co-ops address the affordability crisis. It is
usually about pooling resources to purchase a housing block or land or, in some cases, with government support for establishing
social housing for low-income earners. Sættedammen, begun in Denmark in 1972, is generally regarded as the first. It involved 27
households -60 adults and 20 children, and was deliberately constructed around
shared facilities rather than shared values and this idea has quickly spread
around the world.
One of the best examples is La Borda in Spain. Born in 2012 out of a local
residents' movement to reclaim an old industrial site in a neighbourhood with a
long cooperative tradition under a 75-year lease from Barcelona City Council. Residents
don't own the property outright but hold permanent, cooperative rights to live
there. Completed in 2018, it boasts 28 timber, low-energy homes with solar, clustered
around shared community spaces that deliberately blur the line between private
and communal living.
The model helped shape Spanish public policy on cooperative housing, with over 500 further units built or planned on the back of it. It's also won real architectural recognition, including the Mies van der Rohe Award for Emerging Architecture in 2022. Smaller versions exist in places such as Beacon Hill House in Boston, or several communities -both urban and rural, in the state of Victoria (AU) which has been very active in this space, especially in Melbourne.
Food, Agriculture and Sustainability
There are many communities for whom healthy, sustainable, organic food production is a priority, but I will just mention a couple.
Zaytuna Farm, NSW, Australia — the flagship demonstration site of the Permaculture Research Institute, founded by Bill Mollison and Geoff Lawton, showcasing food forests, animal integration, and water management, and running permaculture design courses for a global audience, has just begun to add residential spaces.
Eco Village at Ithaca in New York State was begun in 1991 and is home to 225 residents of all ages on over 175 acres. It combines organic farming and permaculture with cohousing and ecological design, with residents in private households jointly managing organic gardens and shared resources.
What was fringe in the 1970s is now becoming mainstream. NPR, the US national broadcaster) notes that young people, particularly millennials are drawn to community living, not just because housing has become even more unaffordable, but because many of them have remained single and do not relish the prospect of spending their lives completely alone. As Kathy Moody, of the now defunct Laurel Hill Plantation community, put it — for many North Americans, intentional communities have become a stand-in for the extended family from which they have become separated by modern life. (See the Sage publication on this topic.)
While many of the drivers such as housing affordability and environmental concern, already existed in the 1970s, along with the existential threat of nuclear war, new threats such as climate change, or economic collapse are also drawing people into new ways of living.
But is it for You?
Speaking for myself, much as I love the idea of a perfect community or being among like minds, I know that I change and will hopefully go on changing. Even in the most beautiful surroundings I would always be wondering what else there is and would feel confined. Perhaps like Friendlyjordies* I am probably more suited to a messy, open-ended, even crime-ridden place like Sydney, than a predictable, perfect one. *[Bad language alert if you look this up!]
The Calhoun Universe 25 Experiment, where populations of mice were raised in perfect conditions, with every comfort but ultimately collapsed, is instructive but not absolute. I agree with Calhoun's finding that it was not about not having to struggle, but disagree on another point. Humans are not mice.
Leave humans alone in a cave for a couple of millennia during an ice age and they'll start drawing on walls, inventing games, songs and stories, or religions to explain their predicament and maintain hope. Or they'll invent tools and fire, or ways to escape their fate. They may even co-operate to achieve common goals such as bringing down a mammoth, or form themselves into teams, or into opposing sides to fight for the available space. Perhaps that's how we developed bigger brains and our ability to speak, though sometimes you do have to wonder. Ultimately the question remains. Will you love thy neighbour and will they love you?
Should you be interested in exploring any of these possibilities further, the Foundation for Intentional Communities has some checklists plus tools, information and training, also for communities. Although mainly US centred it also has links to some other countries, such as India, Italy and Costa Rica. There are tips on starting your own community or retrofitting an existing one. You do not have to move into a separate community to create a more communal life.
Other Helpful Sites
Europe
GEN-Europe –European Eco Village Network also has tools, information and training and connects to 15 National Networks including those in places like Finland, Ukraine, Serbia, Switzerland, Estonia, Hungary, Portugal, the Netherlands, Ireland and the UK, Spain. Russia, Sweden and Denmark, Italy and Romania. Germany and France are particularly well represented. See the Directory here or the map here.
Eurotopia is a physical directory published in Germany, but covering Intentional Communities, communes, Eco Villages and Co-housing Projects throughout Europe. An online version is to be published in future.
Australia
Intentional Communities, Melbourne
Collaborative Housing – both Urban and Rural
Eco Villages Victoria and Northern New South Wales
This post has been prepared with help from Claude - references, proofreading, editorial and philosophical discussions and also Ecosia which was very helpful re the vast number of European Communities.
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