I've been trying to do this live-near-friends thing for over 20 years and still haven't succeeded. Glad to see it's getting some good press these days that doesn't gloss over how difficult it is to pull it off.

In 2005-2006 I was involved with an intentional community founders group. We bought land, built one small structure, and were looking at tiny houses (hard to find back then!)... but then the whole effort collapsed on the launching pad.

I've lived solo ever since.

But now that I have *three* dear friends living in Eugene, OR, a city I know well and hope to move back to, I hope I'll get another chance someday.

The regulatory climate in Oregon (re: residential infill, ADUs, tiny houses, cottage clusters, etc.) is so much better than it was back then.

Good reading on the Live Near Friends blog for those interested.

I've been trying to do this live-near-friends thing for over 20 years and still haven't succeeded. Glad to see it's getting some good press these days that doesn't gloss over how difficult it is to pull it off.

In 2005-2006 I was involved with an intentional community founders group. We bought land, built one small structure, and were looking at tiny houses (hard to find back then!)... but then the whole effort collapsed on the launching pad.

I've lived solo ever since.

But now that I have *three* dear friends living in Eugene, OR, a city I know well and hope to move back to, I hope I'll get another chance someday.

The regulatory climate in Oregon (re: residential infill, ADUs, tiny houses, cottage clusters, etc.) is so much better than it was back then.

Good reading on the Live Near Friends blog for those interested.

https://blog.livenearfriends.com/

Writer, senior editor, music nerd, GenX eldergoth, monastery-bootstrapper. https://paragraph.xyz/@danicaswanson https://tinyurl.com/Black-Stone-Wordsmith

off & onchain operations
<--->
Sharing ideas over at /workflow <--->
Problem solving is my jam😎
🎩

seemore.tv/free/fc/adam-

I don't mind you asking! It's a good question.

Explaining the failure well and thoroughly would probably require me to write a whole series of blog posts. I took detailed notes and I do have some rough drafts from that time, but I'm not exactly eager to revisit all that. I put everything I had into the effort, and ultimately lost it all. Took years after the fact to even reach a point where I could talk about the community collapse and actually stay dry-eyed.

Anyway, here's a partial list of reasons we failed:

Restrictive zoning laws, disruptive neighbors, an unreliable vehicle that failed at critical times, the persistence of our city-bred living habits (we bought rural land), multiple health issues, outright ridicule from family who thought we were batshit crazy, and personality clashes.

An ugly divorce turned out to be the final nail in the coffin.

If you don’t mind me asking, how did things end up falling apart when you were so close to getting it off the ground?

There's even more great reading in the Supernuclear newsletter. Highly recommended. It's just the sort of thing I wish we'd had back in the day.

Clarity-technologies.com COO and co-founder, Internet Explorer, VIP 🧭 Co-host of /music 🎵 

xSonos xOura

bradbarrish.me

There's even more great reading in the Supernuclear newsletter. Highly recommended. It's just the sort of thing I wish we'd had back in the day.

https://supernuclear.substack.com/

yeoro.eth → db.team → /slc → SuperBenefitDAO, All in For Sport → "purpose aligned networks of small autonomous teams”