Intentional Communities

The Westcott community center in Syracuse was an active place this Saturday. This weekend, the "The Alchemical Nursery" was giving out free bags of bulbs to people who live in the community. As a result, each spring, flowers bloom in front of homes and apartments of those who participate! The center also was distributing recycle bins provided by the county and of course there were organic vegetables for purchase.

Although this was all good, I came to Syracuse for a different reason. The Alchemical Nursery people were also showing a film and hosted a Q&A panel about "intentional communities". These come in more forms and are much more numerous than I was initially aware of. Some intentional communities seem nothing more than weak homeowner associations while others manage member activities to an almost cultish level. Communities tend to change over time and members themselves tend to change too. Some communities deal with aging members simply by limiting membership to younger members while others have gone as far as setting up assisted living arrangements. One thing in common with the successful communities is that there is usually some common theme that binds the members together which is above a purely economic benefit.

The topic is much more complicated than this blog posting can cover. The main message I got from the movie and Q&A panel was that successful intentional communities do exist and no two are the same. The lifestyle can be quite rewarding but a planned community requires a lot of work to maintain. If you want to check out what types of intentional communities are out there, check out http://www.ic.org/