In a small way, this article on co-housing makes sense, but it also seems silly to give a new name to an old idea.
For a while, when it looked like most of my generation was living in NorCal, our parents talked of getting a compound and living all together they way they used to in Korea. Everyone has their little house/area and sees family every day. I think a lot of people fear this, I do. But my folks and their siblings/cousins find it appealing.
That idea has fallen by the wayside as everyone is in different financial states and real estate in their ideal location is too expensive. But I still kind of hope that once my mean uncle dies, my mom and her sister will live together and take care of my pop. That would be kind of cool. They talk on the phone all the time anyway. I swear, the only reason we had long distance was so that my mom could talk to her sisters in CA.
My grandparents used to live in Section 8 housing in Philadelphia, where there happened to be a lot of other old Korean grandparents. The grandmother of one of my sibling’s high school buddies lived on the same floor. It was nice. They would shuffle down the halls to visit one another.
Anyway, yet another financial fantasy.
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At our home we do a basic version of “cohousing” with 4 bedrooms rented out in our 5 bedroom home. We do communal meals every so often, share chores, chat, watch TV together, gardening. It’s great and it reduces our expenses by taking care of most of the mortgage and utilities.
I’ve always liked the idea of cohousing/commune living. In today’s society we’re so disconnected from a sense community and even our friends (as they often live thousands of miles away). Sharing responsbility has always seemed like a great idea to me. I’ve been trying to get a rotating dinner amongst my friends started both for budget and social reasons…
A friend of mine just retired to a cool multigenerational cohousing place. She has her own little casita and there are communal meals in the community center. She loves the combination of privacy and community. Because as an old lady, she isn’t segregated into elderly housing, she has made tons of new friends, young and old, and gets to be a “grandma” to a lot of young people who don’t necessarily see their own grandparents very much. It is an old idea, respun for the modern fractal world, but it is all good, IMHO.