Comment by hombre_fatal
2 days ago
When four roommates often can't keep the kitchen sink clean of dishes, I wonder how a 20-home communal coop would work without creating politics and resentment.
Great, the guy who "cleans" the coop when it's his turn by gently sweeping it for two minutes just swiped all of the eggs again.
I always thought it was silly that everyone in the suburbs owns their own lawn mower, edger, and weed whacker. Why not have a communal shed on every cul-de-sac? ...Until I lended tools out to people and saw how they treated them.
I'd think most of the time you'd need some sort of oversight structure just to manage people.
Community projects like this can operate successfully, but they do take work (like intentional communication and meetings), and there are politics. If we're envisioning 20 houses, yeah, there probably needs to be some kind of structure.
Since you mentioned the suburbs specifically, I'll also note that, at least imo, that: - the suburbs are designed in such a way as to encourage atomized, isolated living (houses are relatively far a part, you usually need a car to get anywhere, fenced-in yards are the norm, etc). - presumably people are moving out to the suburbs because they find that lifestyle appealing, so there's some self-selection happening such that people in the suburbs are less interested in sharing stuff communally.
So if you were just trying to get 20 households that happen to live closest to you involved, it probably is too big a committment for them.