Deep in the heart of Siberia's birch forests lies one of the largest and most remote religious communes of the planet. More than 5,000 people have left their families and their homes to move here and join the Church of the Last Testament, which has more than 10,000 followers worldwide. The church centers on one man. He is known simply as Vissarion, meaning "he who gives new life," or simply as the teacher, and he claims that he is Jesus Christ.
Life here is very basic. Vissarion's followers are strict vegetarians and they don't smoke or drink. The houses and churches are built from wood by hand and most of the energy comes from windmills and solar panels. At the followers' school, little boys are taught how to build model ships and young girls learn crochet and singing.
The villagers in the Abode of Dawn follow an almost entirely vegan diet, largely based on what they can grow themselves. When they move here, they give the church their pensions and whatever possessions they may have. In return they receive basics such as sugar, buckwheat and flour. No money is used within the community but they are given an allowance of 300 rubles, about $12, a month.
The piece has a fairly skeptical tone but the images of the community members show them as happy. Whether you agree with their spirituality or not, the images of a remote 5000 person community are striking and I'm sure it would be fascinating to seehow things work day to day.
The NBC Today show did a feature on the top 5 friendliest cities in the country and Davis, California made the list in part due to being the home of cohousing and the first city with a city-wide network of bike paths. The article doesn't say much about cohousing but the video does.
Davis is where cohousing was founded, where the first young hippies wanted to live in a circle around a community center and love each other and that tone has permeated that whole city and housing market.
Ok so its not the most accurate description of the birth of cohousing in the US but at least its positive.
A lot of news about communities comes my way and its hard to pick and choose what to highlight on Community Buzz. Today, nothing stood out so I figured I'd do a round up of some news thats been languishing on my list but didn't seem quite enough for its own story.
Ithaca has a new community in the works, Farm Pond Circle, and they are already getting press in the Ithaca Journal for planting trees on their new community land. Obviously folks in Ithaca know about community and must be interested in whats new in their area.
Champlain Valley Cohousing was in the Burlington Free Press in an article about the farm they have on site. The 22 unit cohousing community has a 25 acre farm on its land that works as a CSA and sells to wholesalers.
The Portland Oregonian had an article about Columbia Ecovillage, a community developing in Portland that started as a farm and sustainability education center and just bought the adjacent apartment complex with plans to convert them to green living cohousing. See photos on the Oregonian blog.
Then there's all the reviews of the movie Mister Lonely that is about impersonators (look-a-likes of Michael Jackson , Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, etc.) who come together in a commune in Scotland. The kicker is that according to some reviews filmmaker Harmony Korine spent some time as a child "on a commune near Nashville, TN". Most likely The Farm but there are many communes in the Nashville area.
By now, most have heard about the raid by Texas Rangers on the Fundamentalist Mormon community in west Texas. During the raid, 437 children were removed from the community compound based on concerns of child abuse and neglect, primarily based on the concern that underage girls were being forced to marry older men against their will.
We couldn't possibly keep up on all the coverage of the story here but it seemed incongruous to never mention this major media event in this blog about communities in the news.
Below is a small sampling of news and blog coverage on the story. We invite comments if people are interested in sharing.
"The two groups growing dramatically now in America are ecovillages, which are usually rural or semi-rural, and cohousing, which tends to be in or near cities," says Bill Metcalf, a sociologist at Griffith University in Australia who studies communalism and has lived in two intentional communities.
Part of the motivation is that we have a very strongly increased sense of alienation in the country than we did a generation ago," said Laird Schaub, founder and resident of Sandhill Farm in Missouri.
Shared common spaces and clever architectural features--like thick walls and south-facing windows--contribute to energy usage per person that is 40% less than for the average American. A typical couple living in Ecovillage at Ithaca pays about $500 in energy bills a year, compared to a couple in a downtown Ithaca apartment who can pay hundreds of dollars a month during the winter.
There is also a short video on The Fellowship Community, a community which focuses on care for the ill and elderly. The video interview with the founders of the community describes their amazing experience in creating a community that could give long term care to their members and residents. Their unique experience offers an alternative to the wider culture's experiences with elder care. (Note video may not be viewable on Firefox)
But the utopia feature is not all positive on the concept of utopia. Forbes also has an article on the failures of utopian experiments. Mostly the article highlights all the "failed" communities of America's past and comes from an economic/business perspective (it is Forbes.com after all).
The competition for succession invariably favors not the wise, but the ruthless. This is especially dangerous in communistic societies. Where selfishness is a sin or a crime, everyone is guilty; you don't want your antagonists gaining the authority to sit in judgment.
A second lesson is that ideals are constraints, and the more constraints one tries to impose, the less viable the community will be. It's hard enough for a private company--an organization focused exclusively on economic success--to survive intact for multiple generations. Add to that special utopian claims on the firm by the employees and you can see how tough the odds are. The best bet is to run utopia as a business, which is exactly what many communities concluded.
A second lesson is that ideals are constraints, and the more constraints one tries to impose, the less viable the community will be. It's hard enough for a private company--an organization focused exclusively on economic success--to survive intact for multiple generations. Add to that special utopian claims on the firm by the employees and you can see how tough the odds are. The best bet is to run utopia as a business, which is exactly what many communities concluded.
This last argument seems to contradict the research presented recently in the Economist that claimed that religious communities were more successful if they had more strictures on their membership, not less.
Not to stop with things balanced, Forbes produces another article on the failures of American Utopianism including a photo slideshow including pictures of the Jonestown mass suicide.
But wait there is more! An article about someone's not-so-happy experience living in a shared household for a year in college. After a brief smack at Earthaven and Damanhur the author describes her brief experience in a dysfunctional version of community, drawing general conclusions from that experience.
Lammas Ecovillage in Wales is seeking approval for their ecovillage under new UK government rules to allow a new form of rural mixed use development. Theirs would be the first ecovillage approved under these new rules which allow a mix a residential, agricultural, and commercial enterprises on much more affordable rural land.
Lammas has been getting a lot of press and exposure on blogs but not all of it has been accurate. EcoWorldly and TreeHugger recently posted a notice saying Lammas had been granted approval but a Lammas member commented to say that they had resubmitted their plans but is still awaiting approval. For more accurate info keep an eye on the Welsh news or on the Lammas site itself.
You can also see videos about Lammas at undercurrents.org:
I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!
The Wild Goose Bed and Breakfast got some publicity for ecovillages on the Ithaca, NY local news. The bed and breakfast is located in the Ecovillage at Ithaca community just outside of town and draws customers interested in a green lifestyle.
"I don't have to turn on the heat once the sun's shining in 'till late in the afternoon even on a bitter day like today," said Gail Carson, the owner. Thick walls and south-facing windows help make heating homes at EcoVillage more efficient than most houses.
Her business has doubled in the last year, while energy consumption at the inn continues to be minimal. Carson said one of the reasons she thinks her business has increased over the years is because people are simply curious about eco-villages.
ABC News in DC did a short video spot on Catoctin Creek Village out in Loudon County, VA and compared the rural cohousing community to both a 60s commune and a golf community. Not the most flattering or accurate description of community but I guess there is no such thing as bad publicity.
The commune is a flash from the past where people lived together and shared almost everything. "We don't share incomes. We don't share partners. It's just like any other subdivision but with a slight twist," said Oliveau.
The twist is much like a golf community, but without the golf. The concept is known as co-housing.
The concept of co-housing did evolve from the communes of the 70's, but people at Catoctin Creek say they are less like flower children and more like farm family.
Your Health Connection has created a series of three videos on cohousing and how it can help enhance people's health. The site generaly focuses on health care and and medical issues but did a special report on cohousing as a healthier lifestyle.
Videos include interviews with folks from Frog Song Cohousing in Cotati, CA and Glacier Circle Cohousing a senior cohousing community in Davis, CA. The first video is an overview of cohousing including a look at senior cohousing. The second is a moving piece looking at the experiences of a woman diagnosed with cancer and how her cohousing community supported her during treatment.
Abundance Ecovillage in Fairfield, IA made the local news with a wonderful piece on their growing ecologically focused community. The piece focused primarily on the ecological aspects: solar and wind power, energy conservation, rain water catchment, waste water treatment, food production, etc.
Co-founder Lonnie Gamble started the project after several people approached him about how to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, "Their beer is cold, their showers are hot, but we do it with one-tenth of the energy a conventional home would use."
The Ecovillage has room for 50 to 70 people to make their home for about the same cost as building a new home in Fairfield. But here there are no electric, water, or even sewage bills to worry about. Gamble asks, "If we can build homes like that for about conventional cost, why do we build anything else?"
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Forbes.com has a 
Lammas Ecovillage
I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!
Abundance Ecovillage