It began, as many ideas do, as a joke.
First made, I can’t remember how long ago. But one of the more memorable times was at the end of 2020 when 25 friends gathered at a bach near the beach to celebrate the New Year.
For four sweet days, we cooked together, read together, spent every minute together before falling asleep in a mass of tents, cars, and mattresses. We did each other’s dishes, stole one another’s clothes and the boundaries between our lives seemed more transparent than ever before.
“We should totally start a commune,” we’d laugh to one another at least once a day.
Yet, in the months and years since 2020, as the cost of living soared and our general faith in society tanked, the joke took a cutting edge. Now, instead of a laugh, the response is often an earnest explanation of the benefits it would bring or ways it could be done.
If we did call one another’s bluff, buy a large property, and live together in a way that countered dominant culture, we wouldn’t be the first.
It’s Denmark, 1964 and Danish architect Jan Gudmand-Hoyer has assembled a bunch of friends to purchase a site on the edge of Copenhagen. Here, they plan to form a ‘co-housing’ project of 12 houses.
Unsurprisingly, the liberal city officials supported the idea, but site neighbours weren’t on board. Devastated by the foiled plans, Gudmand-Hoyer wrote an article titled “The Missing Link between Utopia and the Dated One-Family House.” Over a hundred families wrote back expressing interest in living in such a community.
Skip ahead to 1867 and Bodil Graae wrote a similar article about collaborative living, titled “Children Should Have One Hundred Parents.” Her article attracted 50 families interested in a child-focused housing collective and the next year Graae and Gudmand-Hoyer united to develop two sites called Saettedammen and Skraplanet.
By 1980, Denmark had 12 owner-occupied cohousing communities and two years later, this number grew to 22 as the Danish government and financial institutions set aside scepticism and embraced the concept.
Interest would slowly grow in other western countries until a catalyst called Covid-19 hit.
In America, the National Association of Realtors found 15 per cent of home buyers purchased multigenerational homes in 2020; the highest number since 2013 when this type of survey was first done.
The speed of the increase was a shock, prompted by people prioritising family during the pandemic and being unable to afford to live alone. But the increase itself wasn’t a surprise according to the vice president of demographics and behavioural insights, Jessica Lautz.
Speaking to the New York Times, Lautz said growth had long been anticiapted, as families likely to live with elderly parents (like those in Asian and Latino cultures) became a larger portion of US home buyers.
Which is important to keep in mind. Because, while companies like Common or Together Coliving market co-living as some terrifically trendy lifestyle that will optimise your life, it’s both literally archaic and still dominant in many eastern countries or religious communities.
Yet, in Western cities that outgrew inter-generational living decades ago, cohousing has made a comeback in many forms.
You could have several young Danish families living in a renovated farm estate or a shared apartment in New York City populated by young artists. A family could merge three or four generations under a single (but much larger) roof in North Carolina or have an artists share house in Melbourne.
The form and intensity of collaboration vary too. Some roster cooking, laundry or childcare duties, while others allow collaboration to happen more organically.
Despite the differences, there are some common threads that unite cohousing projects and set them apart from the typical, individualised houses and apartments.
Much like a family home, all offer a mix of private and common spaces designed to encourage community interaction. Kitchens and dining areas, libraries and laundry facilities will often be shared and can include play centres for kids or offices spaces for workers. Many also have common gardens, walking tracks or operational farms.
Along with areas, many resources are communally purchased and used, from food supplies to garage tools and important decisions are made collaboratively.
Simply put, everything from architecture to allocation of goods is geared towards community and sharing.
Something that has become hugely counter-cultural, if even practised at all, in our cities.
When was the last time you asked a friend, co-worker, family member or neighbour to borrow something? Not a tissue or spare pen, (something of little expense or inconvenience) but a valuable item? A mountain bike or cocktail dress, camping tent or moving van?
How often, when faced with lack, is our gut response to acquire, not through borrowing but buying? Or at least, renting?
When in need of an item (once, semi-regularly or permanently), how many of us would send out an email, Facebook post or Instagram story asking if people had one to loan, trade, or give away?
And here’s the added challenge; not for money.
If this seems cheap or uncomfortable, I wonder if it’s because we have forgotten what it’s like to deal in any currency other than money. If, after decades of mass consumerism (where status is validated through ownership of material objects), we’ve grown resistant to dependency and unable to endure the vulnerability of ‘needing’ or accepting generosity in its purest form.
An excellent example can be found in my brother in law, Scott, who, until recently, did not own a leaf blower. My father, on the other hand, did. So, every few weeks he would drive 12 minutes to our house and ask to borrow the blower, occasionally staying to chat.
Then, for his 30th birthday, someone bought him a leaf blower. As a fancy electric model that represented his passion for sustainability and saved him a 30-minute drive every few weeks, it was, objectively, an excellent present. But the autonomy and efficiency came at a cost.
Without needing to stop by, those moments of quick connection are lost. And while it’s easy to dismiss a few minutes here and there, lockdowns showed us how much these passive touch points contribute to a deeper sense of connection and belonging.
Despite the inconvenience, relying on others for objects presents a tactile prompt away from isolation and towards community, even when it’s the last thing we want to do. I’m willing to bet dozens of conversations that took place during the collection or drop-off of that leaf blower would not have taken place, yet slowly strengthened those relationships.
In the same way, a co-housing’s shared spaces, whether they’re kitchens, lounges or gardens, present daily opportunities for connections, whether you seek them out or not. Something especially important during challenging times when we most feel like withdrawing but probably just need to feel belonging.
The second loss was the process of needing, asking, and accepting generosity, which does profound work on our character.
Decades ago, people frequently relied on sharing with one another, simply because goods were limited or expensive. Not every family could afford a lawnmower or personal telephone, so you just gathered around and shared. It was normal.
Today, in a cultural context where capitalism aggressively advocates self-sufficiency through materialism and transactional relationships, to physically ‘need’ from a peer without being able to ‘pay’ them back can cause the unfamiliar type of vulnerability known as humility.
Even after expressing a need (which indicates a ‘lack’ of leaf blower), and enduring risk of rejection, Scott would have to submit to my dad’s terms and rules. A series of events that are near impossible to do while maintaining an attitude of superiority, pride, or impatience.
Yet rarely are we reminded of the result: a robust trust and tender intimacy.
This all applies tenfold to those living in co-housing projects where much is shared and little is gripped tightly; outward realities that shape our inward tendencies from selfishness and stubbornness to soft graciousness and patience.
Unlike most obsessions of mine, the topic of coliving is one I’ve been surprised to encounter almost constantly amongst friends.
At first, I wondered if this was simply a Baader–Meinhof situation, where frequency is more a case of heightened awareness than popularity.
Yet, it really does seem like visions of buying up suburbs and living side by side has become some abstract Mecca; a place where all conversations about community and property eventually end.
I must admit, part of co-living’s appeal is its blissful detachment from reality. The way we can bask in the anticipated benefits without having to confront the compromise and conflict it would inevitably cause.
In our dreams, we can share belongings, but our stuff is never ruined, we eat dinner as a group but no one avoids doing the dishes. In the envisioned future, we can gain all the advantages without any of the costs.
Just last week, a discussion with my sister about housing turned from weightless ‘what ifs’ to serious questions. Suddenly, we had to put aside rose-tinted hypotheticals and ask; what would we sacrifice for proximity to one another? Would we give up a preferred suburb or central location? Would we choose somewhere smaller, or less trendy, in order to be close?
Yet, despite the costs this communal lifestyle brings, whether it’s sharing a leaf blower or living next door, I still think it’s worth it. I still believe it could be a kind of antidote from the fragmented individualism we all seem to be battling.
So, that’s what I’ve been thinking, and, in turn, doing. It’s why I’m hosting a clothes swap with friends, to see what we can trade. Why I’m swapping earrings with a friend instead of instinctively buying my own and encouraging my partner to ask around for a free trailer when he moves house.
Whether it’s leaf blowers or books, appliances, or clothes, I encourage you to give trading, borrowing or taking (with permission) a go, no strings attached.
Sarah