Seems like a no-brainer convergence of our Tumbleweed village/Nullhof/environmental custodianship ideas.
Many seem to be organized as homeowners' associations.
Does this have too few degrees of freedom? Too much communal politics? Or is it compelling to you?
I guarantee you'll eventually if not immediately have the following problem
http://www.permies.com/bb/index.php?topic=3069.0
Just like some people are literally orders of magnitude more frugal than others (yet both identify themselves as frugal), some are also far more eco-minded than others. Worse, due to human nature, those who are more frugal/eco are seen as crazy, everybody sees themselves as being eminently reasonable, and those doing less as evil and holding everybody back. Even worse, people evolve over time.
I remember reading a discussion on permies over a communal fight over a well. One thought it was stealing water from nature which went against dogma, others an acceptable shortcut given high water tables, ... and so on.
I've been following the forum for a few weeks (new member here!) and started with the ERE village and tumbleweed thing and my whole thought was "EcoVillage". I know a lot of people seem to think that ERE personality doesn't work in such an environment, but I think that's actually what would make it work.
Many may be loners and the thought of doing "community" is out of the question, but I would suggest anyone even considering such an idea read one or both of the following books:
Finding Community
Creating a life together
Both are by Diana Christian, who's written for a while on EcoVillage living and put together some books for learning what to look for in joining a community or building one from ground up.
I think one of the issues is the term "ecovillage" which tends to just think of a bunch of eco warrior hippies living in huts and planning the next anti-nuclear protests. It's something that many "intentional communities" (the more correct term for what we're discussing) go through and why many fail miserably.
However, the idea of an ERE community is somewhat solid:
Smaller eco-friendly housing. It may not be just for the environmental aspect, but this type of structure is meant to maximize space, and minimize cost in both construction, maintenance, and utility usage.
Usually revolves around some sort of food sustainability. This fits ERE as many have already or plan for having gardens or keeping animals to reduce the grocery budgets. Having a larger community property generally puts you in a more rural (code friendly) area for keeping animals and generally provides more space to have these animals away from direct living quarters.
Ability to share costs/items and the economies of scale. One thing that I think immediately stands out are things like larger appliances. Does every household NEED a full laundry facility? I see some here talking about doing things old fashioned by hand, but the ability for 10+ people to share a laundry machine (as opposed to buying one or spending $ a week at a laundromat) allows you to share costs of items that each would use minimally. Same could be said of other things like tools, lawnmowers, etc, etc. Having one central area to share means nobody needs to buy and maintain individual items.
Same thing goes for land. We all love recreational land, but typically it's too expensive to buy a lot of land for one's self. However, as you buy land in larger quantities, the price per acre goes down and everyone has access to much more acreage for the investment.
I think it's good when the intentional community is around like minded people. Considering ERE -- things like water tables would (likely) not be the concern that would divide community as the like minded concerns would be around fiscal items.
While I'm not retired, and don't know that I plan to be in the very short term...it's these things that make me think I'd want to live in community. Sadly, many that I've researched are "stone age" style and go off-grid to the point where there's no access to the outside world, which I enjoy just a little too much. :)
I'd love to help build a tiny house community. I've started a planning site at http://tinyhousecommunity.com/
I would love to live in a tiny house community when I retire. Maybe we should merge the idea with ERE city?
Where you at Zev? This thread seems to have died a quick death.
As for "tiny house community" -- I could see it, but then again a little more freedom would be my style.
I'm interested in things like cob, rammed earth, etc instead of living on a converted trailer. Although, I like the idea that if any part of the land agreement fails, you can take your tiny house on wheels and roll on to a new pad.
One thing to take a look at is campground properties for sale. There are a few sites out there, but in general it seems that camping is down and people are offloading the property. Depending on how that property was set up (electric/water/sewer at the sites) it can be more expensive but the potential to put that infrastructure in later means it's not a necessity.
I've been long looking to start my own ecovillage in eastern West Virginia, although the "eco" part is subjective.
I think the thread died a quick death because most of the discussion was happening over at:
http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com/topic.php?id=1427#post-19314
The dream is still alive! I think the Ecovillage is a somewhat different idea than the Tumbleweed village, but I'm open to both. There is definitely something to be said for centralized ownership rather than communal cooperationism.
Anyone who's especially interested in the Ecovillage idea, what's your time horizon for ERE? Mine is currently the end of 2013.
2014 is my goal.
I'm still on the ERE fence. I don't know that I'll ever get to extreme, but honestly I think the ability to get ERE is tied to my goals of community living. Pending the costs of community living, I may get to retirement long before plan.
I'm more concerned with living in community first, and worrying about ERE second.
Probably 2014 or 2015. But unfortunately, I am not inclined to live in USA. Maybe we could start franchises.
I'm a community living type with some experience—not ready for ERE as I'm just starting out, but I am definitely willing to put in some sweat equity if the site is right.
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