any relocatees consider living in a commune in Austin? Seriously...yes, just like the 60's hippies! (Atlanta: apartments)

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I think that would be such a cool option for those tired of looking at apartment megaplexes with pick-up trucks pulling in the gateway at 50 MPH 24/7, and the typical cookie-cutter subdivisions....for most of man's history, he has lived in a commune type setting..not till like 1952 or something has he clustered himself in faceless subdivisions with 7-11's and Wendy's......

So here are a few real communes for you relocatees to choose from...this is real, serious stuff here folks, and these places would love to have you, and many love families as well, so your kids can learn all about sharing and diversity....Here are a few of Austin's finest communes for you!

I like this one..you only have to do 5 hours labor a week, and can sleep, make table candles, hang out at the Wheatsville co-op the rest of the week! I love that work week!

About Sasona Co-op

The following has a 6-hour work week, a little harder to swing than the 5 hour one above, but I'm sure it can be handled...and they do not allow meat in the house....I guess that rules out BBQ..

Whitehall Cooperative

I seriously like this one..sorta like a real development...but you still share meals...sorta like the moonies, but its all good...at least these guys aren't vegans, and like a good steak

Kaleidoscope Village | Building a Village in the City

OK, that's it, folks.. you now have another option in Austin other than cookie cutter subs and mega apartments!

Good luck in relocating to your commune of choice in Austin!!

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I should add, this was tongue in cheek, as, while these options ARE real, they really are not bona fide communes...not that you grant certificates for such things, but typically a commune is in a rural area, and an actual "collective", autonomous, and sharing essentially nothing in common with any residents in the area. That was really the whole point of this in the 60's, per the back to the land movement. These Austin examples are really just co-housing, commune def in living quarters, but very pale vestiges of the real thing. Sure, they help out with chores, but not many chores to do in a housing complex in an urban area...the full fledged communes back in the day were on massive acreage, and, being self-sufficient, had to create/build everything from scratch, just like the pioneers a century past...I suppose you could just call it "re-living" the pioneer past in many ways.Austin's little co-housing opts are just a little baby touch of those self-suficient commune ranches and farms, some of which still exist today....

Here, for example, is one that has been running non-stop since 1968, and still accepts residents and visitors...

Black Bear Ranch

Hawaii has some interesting ones...one on the Big Island is a commune-circus, that travels around Hawaii performing through the year, that anyone can join, and accepts visitors. The point is, there are still many more options and living arrangements out there than you would think, and many more cities and places to try out/move to than the same old handful that people seem to flock to like lemmings, like Austin....we are all social animals, and the web is no exception. When we all read that Austin is the place to be on/in the web, then it follows that we massively move there, followers that we are. There will always be some that think for themselves and resist that, and some that go to even greater lengths, and look for creative living arrangements....those trailblazers are the ones the create society actually, and always have...even back in the pioneer days, the 'blazers would form new trails and towns, and the 85% that are followers would be seen marching in lockstep in the foreground, as the 'blazers went on to form new places and trails....

Thats what I think has changed here locally...Austin has become just another place to relocate..it once was a place for freethinkers and change agents, but now beckons those looking for "safe" areas and good schools, like any other massively growing city in the sunbelt....where it ever morphed into Phoenix/Atlanta/Tampa I have no idea, but this city is just another place to relocate in the sunbelt is all now, with affordable housing....that, in a nutshell, explains all the change in zeitgeist in the Austin metro as a whole, though pockets of the old remain, all of it in the central city and outskirts/posts like UT.....and long may what is left of that pioneering, free-thinking mindset live, as a tiny vestige/pocket of the area as a whole.....