23 February 2007
Thoughts on Communal Living
The idea of communal living fascinates me. It’s been on my mind alot recently, as we have some friends who decided to undertake an experiment in such an activity. You can read more about it here. Basically, these two married couples decided that two houses and four cars and all the appliances that go along with that was just way too much stuff for just four people. So they both live in one of their houses now.
While there are huge challenges involved, as its hard enough to mesh two personalities (i.e. a couple) in one home, meshing four can’t be a whole lot easier.
But such challenges aren’t the object of my interest. I’m intrigued by the financial aspects of this decision. When you get to thinking about it, a decent chunk of expenses in your house wouldn’t rise to twice their price if you let twice as many people use them. Let’s discuss a few:
Appliances - Washers, driers, dishwashers, ovens, etc. Most of these are designed such that they could easily handle twice as much usage (well, when you go from 2 users to 4, that is).
Entertainment - Most forms of home entertainment can easily accomodate more users at the same exact price. DVD Rental, TV, CD’s (music doesn’t care how many listen how many people listen at once), Cable TV, etc.
Utilities - It doesn’t cost twice as much to heat two people in a space as it does to heat four. Sure the water bills a tad higher, but that is a small part of utility expense in most homes.
Food - not as strong a case here, but there’s types of food in this world that I know my wife and I can’t eat before it goes bad.
I worked at a retail store for a long time, and during my stint I learned a lot about how pricing works. I had always thought that pricing was merely a function of the cost, that no matter what the retail price would be between 20% to 50% higher than what the store paid. I came to learn, as far as consumer products go… the price is more often a measure of what the market can bear. That’s just a fancy way to say how much the typical individual/family in that area will be willing/able to pay.
Fortunately for the Brown’s and Tank’s, the price of goods in the U.S. is typically based off a person or family (with generally no more than two wage-slaves) in the middle-class. They have four.
Some of you may ask: what makes this “communal living” and not just “a smart couple saving cash by renting out a room of their house”? Well, for one, the people involved are all ‘like-minded’, which is just a fancy way to say are at approximately the same place in their thoughts regarding theology and orthopraxy. Secondly, the two doods in this arrangement, Josh and Tank, have gone into business together doing graphic design and whatnot. Third, they make a habit of sharing common meals together.
The most powerful part of this is how it serves to simplify their lives financially. Less monthly payments, more freedom to do what you want. Whether this benefit is worth the loss of privacy and such, time will tell. My friends have only been at this nearly two months. =)
5 Comments currently posted.
ersatz says:
Derek says:
I love the idea of communal living, but there’s one thing that will complicate it quite quickly - kids.
The idea of sharing living space with two families (both with kids) is a little scary. We’ve done multi-family vacations several times, and while they’re always fun, having twice as many kids in the same space is difficult, especially when the parental roles are unclear. Would you allow your housemates to punish your children in the same way that you would? Do you trust them, so completely, that you have no worries at all about the safety of your children?
If you built that kind of trust over the long term, I can see that it would work. But that kind of trust is rare. It’s hard enough to build it in the context of marriage. It’s even harder to build it in the context of communal living.
I think part of that problem comes down to how our houses are built - for one family. We’ve had discussions with others in the past about building a house that was designed for communal living - kind of like how some apartments have two master suites, but really make two separate multi-bedroom suites, with some common space (kitchen, eating areas, recreation areas). Right now we’re thinking more along the lines of putting an apartment in our basement. I think if the areas are designed well, it can work in the context of two families sharing space.
The ironic thing is that the picture you provided of a typical suburban subdivision would have once been seen as an obvious *example* of communal living. People used to have so much more space to themselves, and would have seen any kind of portrayal of the future where so many houses were so close together as an obvious example of people sharing life together as well.
Eric says:
Thanks for the comments, guys. My post was definitely a quick view in to the topic, and I’m glad it could generate some discussion.
I do find it somewhat entertaining that both of you used the word “scary” when envisioning a communal living situation with children involved. Not that I can blame you, I don’t really have a better or more grounded-in-experience way to talk about such things.
That said… I think the discussion of kids being/getting in the mix really has to be a “talked through in the first few discussions” thing instead of a “discussed on move-in day” thing or a “discussed when so-and-so gets pregnant” thing or even a “discussed when the first discipline/safety problem comes up” thing. This may seem obvious, but I’m *sure* couples have moved in together and it wasn’t ever brought up.
As far as my own future children go, there is certainly a very limited subset of people that I would trust them (either discipline- or safety- wise) with, generally defined by my family and members of our house church. Outside of that, I’m not really sure.
And in a broader sense, I think the obstacles to communal living are pretty easy to get hung up on and result in inaction. This doesn’t mean they aren’t valid, it just means that it’s not for everyone.
I will probably post further on this topic as the blog goes along, as I learn more about it. There’s 100 ways to make communal living work, and this post barely scratches the surface on any of them.
Ariah Fine says:
Okay, time for me to jump in. Communal living with kids can work easily. I live with 7 adults and two kids. It’s worked fabulously. The family with two kids would tell you it’s been amazing. Rather then being tied down always, if they need to go somewhere together for a date night, or something else briefly, it’s extremely easy.
Like I think Eric mentioned, there’s a lot of ways to make communal living work. I think we need to start by looking and maybe coming to an understanding that the Scripture compels us to live in community. From there the sky is the limit on how you make it work.
ariah
josh says:
sorry i haven’t posted sooner. i just had a chance to read it this morning. i tried to avoid my rss on the weekends and something was going down friday. consequently i’ve added ericonceaday to my rss and have been enjoying it rather nicely.
i agree with ariah though. while doing it with kids wouldn’t definitely open up a whole new can of worms with possible complications. it seems to me that for it to work it requires the same amount of “giving away” of ourselves that doing it with just adults does. and the thing that i keep thinking about it is how much of influence would having an “uncle” and a “aunt” around shape my kids. i would love that. and believe that my kid would be a 1000x’s the better for it.
this is really cool. i think it’s amazing in principle, and i think the potential for growing as a community is unbelievable, but can the benefits be accomplished without the potential hazards? once the families grow, can this continue?
this is something i have thought about a lot, but more in the context of family. i grew up in a family that is not as close as i would like, but i hope to one day live with (either in close proximity, or “in commune”) my extended family. i think the advantages of sticking close with family are unimaginable.
from a financial standpoint, could the savings be accomplished just by adopting a new lifestyle? i know that there are hundreds of ways to conserve energy and reduce the cost of living. i just think the sharing of so many aspects of life may cost more emotionally in the long run than can be saved financially. it’s something that scares me, but gives me a lot of hope at the same time.