Communal living gaining popularity in U.S.

[ensho]

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php?sid=395616


U.S. Consumers struggling with higher prices are finding strength in numbers.

Community-owned cooperatives, where members pool resources to achieve a common objective, have been gaining popularity in the United States. Members of co-op communities say sharing food, services and manpower makes good economic sense anytime, but even more so during tough economic times.

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The community enjoys groups meals three times a week. They also share laundry facilities, and divide the cost of utility bills, broadband Internet and bulk supplies such as detergent and toilet paper.

'It's actually going to cost me less than living in an apartment by myself and I get more for my money,' according to community member Diane Dew.

Besides sharing the harvest from the community garden, Mariposa members also share tools, babysitting services and household skills.

There are now over 1,500 Community Supported Agriculture farms nationwide

-snip-

But you don't have to live in a commune to reap the benefits of a co-op lifestyle. At a farm in upstate New York, the crops, in this case garlic, are harvested by people who usually go to work in suits.

It's called Community Supported Agriculture or CSA's. For about 450 dollars a year, members receive a weekly delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables.

-snip-

And the idea is taking root. There are now more than 1,500 CSA's nationwide -- and growing.
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right on!

take charge, don't let the neo cons win.

[ixion]

1. very cool... and a far more sustainable model

than suburbia.

[Marrah_G]

2. I know a group who are just getting ready to move into theirs here in MA

It's taken years to develop and build and frankly I wish I had the money to invest in it.

[MannyGoldstein]

7. What Group Is It?

Just curious, as a fellow MA resident.

[Marrah_G]

11. I don't know that they have a name per se

It's a big group of friends who share some common interests. I believe it is up in northwest Middlesex county or northeast Worcester county. Towards the NH border.

[SoCalDem]

3. Co-ops used to be the norm.. In my hometown

we had our own power plant for our town, our own water company, our own farmers' co-op..

Towns used to do this...until the people started to decide they did not want to have their taxes go up, but they still wanted new schools.. Corporations "offered" to buy up these utilities, and THEY would pay for the upkeep and staffing, and they would sell the towns the power on a cash/carry system..and it would be CHEAPER..and of course the doofuses in charge, believed them..:grr:

[csziggy]

9. I am part of a electrical co-op that was started to provide power to rural locations

Our rates tend to be lower than the city owned power system in town and than the for profit power company in the county south of here. And we often get a big check at Christmas time as part of our profit-sharing payout.

Close by is a land co-op started in the 1970s by ex-hippies and hippy wannabes. Some of the residents have lived there since the co-op was started and have worked their way up in the larger community. One is a county commissioner - and one of our strongest local Democratic politicians.

Co-ops work, unless you get power struggles between the members.

[TechBear_Seattle]

4. This is the way America used to be

And how much of human society has existed for thousands of years. I am not surprised it is resurging again; this is the social structure we literally evolved to.

[liberal N proud]

5. Eventually the states will break up these communities

Unless they can determine a method to collect taxes for the value of goods exchanged.

[grannie4peace]

6. hippies were right

[janet118]

10. Back to back to the earth

Can you dig it?

:hippie:

[grasswire]

8. housewives in the early 1900s often shared appliances

I have a lot of old womens magazines. I've seen a number of articles telling how neighbor women would go together to buy a vaccuum or some other piece of household equipment. Mary would get it on Monday and Thursday, Annabelle on Tuesday and Friday, etc. Pretty common, then.

[tblue37]

12. A few years ago, my son bought me an electric mower that I had no

place to put (tiny apartment, no outdoor storage) and did not want. He was bothered by the fact that I was using a push rotary mower to cut the grass. (I was perfectly happy with my little mwoer, but it really bugged him.)

Anyway, the first day I was using it, I asked my neighbor, a sweet girl in her 20s who lives next door in a house with a fenced yard, to help me figure it out. (I am sort of a machine moron.) As she showed me how to use it, she mentioned that her mower, which she kept in a shed in her yard, had died that very day.

So we worked out an arrangement. I handed over my electric mower, and she stores it in her shed. Since I am now sort of gimpy and use a cane because of ruptured discs, she now mows my lawn each week, too. When a woman my age moved into the other apartment in my duplex, she also needed a lawn mower, since she had to mow the back yard of the duplex (I am responsible for the front yard). She asked me to keep an eye out for used mower deals, since she was not well off. I told her not to bother--she could use my mower, too. So all three of us women used the same mower, until the other lady moved out. Now the young man who replaced her as the tenant in the apartment next door also uses the mower.

I gave my little rotary mower to a young friend who just moved into a house with a friend.

There was no good reason for all three of us--me, my neighor, and my other neighbor--to own a separate mower, or for my rotary mower to go to waste. I would be perfectly happy, in fact, if other neighbors wanted to use the mower. I don't know any of my other neighbors, but if they were to walk up and ask to borrow the mower, I would absolutely say yes. The yards are small on our street. One mower could easily serve for several of them.

[ensho]

13. what a lovely person you are

nt

[tblue37]

14. Well, I like to be nice, but the story isn't just about my wanting to share.

Notice that I am getting plenty back. I really had no place to store my electric mower, but for the past 3 years it has lived in a nice safe shed in the young woman's back yard. And now that I can't mow the lawn myself, she does it for me. I give her $10 each time she does (actually, I pay for 14 weeks' worth at the start of the summer--$140 all at once can really help someone out, but $10 at a time dribbled out over 14 weeks is much less helpful).

But the fact is, she never asked for any money to mow my lawn. She just started doing it for me out of niceness on her part. I hadn't asked for it as part of the lawn mower sharinggn arrangement--she just did it.

I have always beleived that if you are nice to others and share, then many people (not all, but enough) will be nice and generous right back at you.

[onethatcares]

15. ya know, that's the way to get to know your neighbors

be friendly, say hi. If anyone needs a hand, offer it. The worst you can do is not be able to help. Peace

[Trillo]

16. Friends with your neighbors!

A good way to be. Not friends as in waving to them in false friendship, but more like an extended family that each help the other.

Regarding the OP's text, it's very close to what corporations do with other corporations in their "corporate family."

A difference between 'being friends with your neighbors', and helping them, versus the "Community-owned cooperatives" of the OPs text, is with the latter there is some kind of (written) agreement between the parties that doesn't necessarily exist if you decide to, say, help your neighbor build a computer (or any other activity requiring specialized knowledge and tools, or even simply labor of some kind).