Description
Diana Leafe Christian is the author of Creating a Life Together and editor of Communities magazine. She lives at Earthhaven Ecovillage in North Carolina. Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction: Ecovillages and Other Intentional Communities What This Book Can Do For You Who This Book is For What is an Intentional Community? SECTION 1: COMMUNITIES: AN OVERVIEW Chapter 1: Why Community? You’ll Impact the Planet with a Smaller Ecological Footprint You’ll Feel Safer You’ll Most Likely be Healthier You’ll Save Money You’ll Grow as a Person You’ll Experience Connection and Support with Like-minded Friends and Colleagues You’ll Have More Fun Chapter 2: Ten Most Common Fears about Joining a Community 1. I Don’t Want to Live out in the Boonies 2. I Don’t Want to Live with a Bunch of Hippies 3. I Don’t Want to Live a “Poverty Consciousness” Lifestyle with Limited Resources 4. I Don’t Want to Live with countercultural types who are trying to avoid responsibility 5. I Don’t Want to Have to Join a Religion or Take up some Spiritual Practice I Don’t Believe in 6. I Don’t Want to Live in a Hierarchical System or Follow a Charismatic Leader 7. I Don’t Want to Have to Think like Everyone Else.What if it Turns out to be a Cult? 8. I’m Afraid I Won’t have Enough Privacy or Autonomy 9. I Don’t Want to Have to Share Incomes or Give all my Money to the Community 10.What if we all Can’t Get Along? I Don’t Want to Live with a Bunch of Bad-tempered,Dysfunctional People Other common questions about community living Chapter 3: Community Living-Day-to-Day (excerpt from Communities magazine) Chapter 4: Ecovillages: For Future Generations Ecovillages – Multiple and Various Human-Scale, Full-Featured Settlements Five Characteristics of Ecovillages But Is it Really an Ecovillage? “Lifeboat Communities,” Future Generations Chapter 5: Cohousing Communities The Costs of Cohousing Joining a Cohousing Community Cohousing Communities and Non-Cohousing Communities Elder Cohousing Chapter 6: Urban Communities: Group Households and Housing Co-ops Urban Group Households Organized Neighborhoods Housing Co-ops Senior Housing Co-ops Student Housing Co-ops Chapter 7: Rural Homesteading Communities, Conference and Retreat Centers Homesteading Communities Conference and Retreat Centers Chapter 8: Spiritual Communities Spiritually Eclectic Communities Communities with a Common Spiritual Practice Camphill Communities Chapter 9: Christian Communities Service-Oriented Christian Communities Catholic Worker Communities L’Arche Communities Chapter 10: Income-Sharing Communes Radical Cooperation What’s It Like Financially? Why Are Income-Sharing Communities so Well Known? Benefts of Income-Sharing Challenges of Income-Sharing Who Income-Sharing Works Well For Chapter 11: What Does It Cost? Factors in the Cost to Join “If I have no funds can I still join a community?” Cohousing,Housing Co-ops, Conference Centers, Spiritual Communities, Communes Do Communities Tell You What It Costs? Sample Costs:What it Costs to Join a Community Chapter 12: What Does It Take to Live in Community? Not for the Faint of Heart What Works Well in Community? Who Does Well in Community? Who Does Not Do So Well? Preparing for Community What Do Communities Want from You? What About Young People Just Out of School? Chapter 13: The Communities Directory, the Internet, and You – Researching Communities Print and Internet Resources Communities Directories and The Internet Separating the Wheat from the Chaff Chapter 14: Your Criteria for Communities to Visit Where to Start Community Size Can the Community Choose Its Members? Age of Members and Rate of Member Turnover Independent-Income and Income-Sharing Communities Your Future Community: Ideals and Realities SECTION 3: VISITING Chapter 15: My Marathon Tour of Communities (reprinted from Communities magazine) Chapter 16: Planning Your Visits Setting up Your Own “Marathon Tour” (or Multiple Shorter Visits) What to Pack Bring Work Gloves Don’t Bring Fido When You Arrive Chapter 17: Excerpts from a Community Seeker’s Journal (reprinted from Communities magazine) Chapter 18: How to Be a Great Guest (and Make the Most of Your Experience) Community Etiquette:What Hosts Would Like from Visitors How to Get What YouWant from Your Visit That Elusive “Sense of Community”: Don’t Count on It Yet “Come Here,Go Away” Did You Hear About the Visitor Who? The “Great Guests”Hall of Fame Chapter 19: Seriously Seeking Community (reprinted from Communities magazine) Chapter 20: Evaluating Your Visits (And Debunking Some Assumptions and Expectations) Signs of Health, Signs of Distress Assumptions and Expectations:What’s Realistic? SECTION 4: JOINING Chapter 21: Taking a Second Look Values Mission and Purpose Overall Friendliness Lifestyle Aesthetics Your Children’s Needs Potential Friends Housing Financing Chapter 22: Choosing Your Community: The “Insider’s Guide” Who Owns the Land? Financial Information Do You Get Your Money Back If You Leave? What Are Grounds For Asking People to Leave? What Legal Entity Does the Group Use to Own Property? How Does the Group Make Decisions? Who Has Decision-Making Rights and When Do They Have Them? The Membership Process: Organized or Laissez Faire? “Narrow Door” or “Ya’ll Come”? How Could You Make a Living, Really? What Else Should You Consider? If No Community Appeals Don’t Marry the First Community that Asks You Chapter 23: The Membership Process Courting and Assessing the Community While They’re Courting and Assessing You I’ve Got Major Challenges – Should I Tell Them? Taking an Even Closer Look Stranger in a Strange Land? Chapter 24: Entering Community Gracefully How to Win Community Friends and Influence People “Come Here,Go Away”- Take Two Like a Wolf Entering a Wolf Pack Developmental Stages of the New-Member Process What If I Don’t Like It? What If They Say “No”? Chapter 25: “The longest, most expensive, personal growth workshop you will ever take!” Community on a Bad Day (reprinted from Communities magazine) We Set Out to Change our World (reprinted from Communities magazine) Appendix A: Sample Community Membership Documents Appendix B: Can Living in Community Make a Difference in the Age of Peak Oil? Index About the Author
