I imagine many people find it tricky enough to live with their own kin, but we have lots of mechanisms to generally make it work that don't really work with broader groups of people (e.g. marriage, societal expectations, judgment by broader family/in-laws, intimate relationships). It doesn't sound like the people in the article live in the very same living space, but there's a fine line between "close-knit community" and "living together."
Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
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Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#22the short answer from my immediate experience seems to be that people just dont get along with each other these days. Our relationships with other parents in our town must remain as shallow as possible because once there are obligations to be shared in any way (simple obligations like "we said we'd all get together on tuesday" which means all those people have to either show up or cancel ahead of time, bonus points for keeping the engagement even if something "more fun" comes up 5 minutes before the event) everything seems to fall apart. Your new dog bit my dog because I was sharing a snack with him? No, we're not going to "work it out" and train our dogs together, we're going to instead "dont ever speak to me again or let me ever see that dog in the same place I'm walking mine again." This is how people are.
Putting all these folks into a "shared community" that actually codifies the obligation for everyone to work together....Well you'd need to get a very special group of people to pull that off and even then, im sure the falling outs are pretty awful nonetheless.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#23My parents had to share a house with a couple when I was a small child. It was not ideal. Shared kitchen. Other shared spaces. Unless you are all on the same page about things, you are basically taking on extra parents. Other people telling you how to do such and such in raising your child which may be ideas that you're not on par with. When you have your own home, you can amicably disagree and go to the privacy of y…
Yup. Disagreements over tidiness, food, kitchen usage, what is appropriate for children, the list goes on and on. Different families come from different cultures, have different values, etc. It's incredibly difficult to find a bunch of other families you're "on the same page with" where you actually want to be co-parenting with and hanging out with all the time. It's one thing when you all grow up together. There's a…
And there are enstranged families. A sort of common occurrence nowdays, but not unknown in the past either (concealed, suppressed, being a shame, common occurrence of the present is perhaps due to less stigma nowadays). They do not want to live or even be in contact with those who gave you (you gave to) their values, efforts, view of life. Lived together for years and years in dependency. People with very strong ties, like it or not.
And co-living should work better with strangers of mixed mentality?
Yes, this must be for people with highly common way of current thinking (current, momentarily, as people do change when they go through significant life experiences, like raising children or joining a community).
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#24I love my own children but very much don't enjoy other people's children. I'm sure it's my deficiency but I'd probably murder someone in a community house.
Funny... All of my kid's friends are pretty wholesome, respectful, nice people. Always happy to have them visit to play. But many of their parents (30-40 years old) are pretty bad. Not nasty, but just... anti-social and aloof, totally absorbed in themselves and their phones. I couldn't imagine raising our kids together in some sort of shared commune.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#25I imagine many people find it tricky enough to live with their own kin, but we have lots of mechanisms to generally make it work that don't really work with broader groups of people (e.g. marriage, societal expectations, judgment by broader family/in-laws, intimate relationships). It doesn't sound like the people in the article live in the very same living space, but there's a fine line between "close-knit community"…
This very much. Harmonious groups only works when there's a clear hierarchy and group pressure to do well (basically a miniature society). And even then you have bad apples. Even in a single family, you can have conflicts. Imagine scaling it to several.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#26[deleted]
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#27People generally only live in community houses if they're poor and have no other options.
"But people in Indi.."
No.
Wealthy Indians have fucking single-family Get Me The Fuck Away From Everyone Else compounds surrounded by high walls, gate houses, and surveillance equipment.
Unless you're a lifelong career civil servant in the foreign service nearing retirement who went abroad working in consulates and embassies immediately after graduating university who has spent their entire life bouncing between different assignments to the point that you don't even feel like a resident of their own country anymore, I know more about this than you.
I know what Africans who live in villages do once they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)
I know what Japanese, Chinese, and Koreans who live in miniscule tower apartments do once they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)
I know what Hip Young Urban Professionals Sipping Coffee On A Sidewalk Next To A Cafe Along The Seine Or Rhine Because Their Apartment Is To Small To Do Anything do the second they get money. (they buy an SUV or wagon and move to an American-style suburb)
It seems impossible for the nu-urbanists and the like to understand the brains of normal human beings who prefer not smelling the farts of others or their terrible cooking, hearing them snore or argue or fuck, seeing them scratch their ass and pick their nose.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#28I love my own children but very much don't enjoy other people's children. I'm sure it's my deficiency but I'd probably murder someone in a community house.
Funny... All of my kid's friends are pretty wholesome, respectful, nice people. Always happy to have them visit to play. But many of their parents (30-40 years old) are pretty bad. Not nasty, but just... anti-social and aloof, totally absorbed in themselves and their phones. I couldn't imagine raising our kids together in some sort of shared commune.
I think/hope my feelings will change as my kids are a bit older. Right now they're both under 5 and other kids just seem like terrorists. I actually worry though that I'm teaching my kids to be too timid and should encourage them to stand up to the terrorists more.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#29Because hell is other people.
Hell is other peoples code.
Re: Why is it so hard to get families to live in community houses?
#30In addition to the social problems, which are nontrivial, there are tons of little bureaucratic friction points to living in community houses that people may not have even considered.
I know one community house of > 10 people in California, exactly the type the author says they want, which kept getting fines from PG&E because they were using too much electricity, even though this was solely due to the house size and on a per-person basis they used much less than people living in single-family houses thanks to resource sharing. A policy intended to encourage energy efficiency ended up punishing it instead. Landmines like this are all over the place.