I think a more attractive option than a group house is something like a pocket neighborhood or baugruppe; I think a location being favorable to that sort of development is a major point in its favor.
There’s a story in Happy City (great book, highly recommended) about some people becoming friends with their neighbors, knocking down the fences in their backyards, and eventually spreading this to their entire block, such that it became a big, semi-private park surrounded by the houses of trusted friends. Habryka and I are definitely pretty excited about something like that. In an area with less insane property values I would imagine this would be pretty doable.
This seems absolutely right to me. I’ve been noodling on ideas in this space for a long time and it definitely seems like the right end-state for living long term is more like an archipelago / cluster than the group houses we usually see. I also don’t know how to find places that are well suited to this sort of development.
But even without the support of a town, it should be possible, with enough planning/thoughtfulness, to purchase (over time) a high % of the properties within a given city block or cul-de-sac or apartment building or whatever. To me, this just seems like a chicken-and-egg coordination problem—there are so many plausible cul-de-sacs you could buy, none will be perfect but any could work if there was already momentum, but there’s not yet. (Also, most people are impatient and don’t have the lifestyle slack to wait 2-5 years for a place to open up in their desired pocket neighborhood)
I think a more attractive option than a group house is something like a pocket neighborhood or baugruppe; I think a location being favorable to that sort of development is a major point in its favor.
There’s a story in Happy City (great book, highly recommended) about some people becoming friends with their neighbors, knocking down the fences in their backyards, and eventually spreading this to their entire block, such that it became a big, semi-private park surrounded by the houses of trusted friends. Habryka and I are definitely pretty excited about something like that. In an area with less insane property values I would imagine this would be pretty doable.
This seems absolutely right to me. I’ve been noodling on ideas in this space for a long time and it definitely seems like the right end-state for living long term is more like an archipelago / cluster than the group houses we usually see. I also don’t know how to find places that are well suited to this sort of development.
But even without the support of a town, it should be possible, with enough planning/thoughtfulness, to purchase (over time) a high % of the properties within a given city block or cul-de-sac or apartment building or whatever. To me, this just seems like a chicken-and-egg coordination problem—there are so many plausible cul-de-sacs you could buy, none will be perfect but any could work if there was already momentum, but there’s not yet. (Also, most people are impatient and don’t have the lifestyle slack to wait 2-5 years for a place to open up in their desired pocket neighborhood)