They Want to Privatize Paradise, the Anarchist Parking Lot
March 12, 2015 11:35 AM Subscribe
"You can’t remain static, or you go backward" Residents of Slab CIty (previously) debate how to handle the potential sale of state land.
As a shareholder in Christiania (previously), this got me to thinking: what is the potential lifespan of intentional, alternative communities in the United States? A mixture of aggressive development policies under Giuliani and gentrification in the East Village hastened the privatization of many squats (to varying degrees of success) there. Cohousing has proved tricky, since the legal structure and code requirements in a lot of areas in the US make it a lot harder than it needs to be. With housing crises in three hottest housing markets in the United States, market-based solutions are unsurprisingly exacerbating the problem. Given that the next big idea seems to be just making things smaller, the need for viable multi-generational alternative housing options grows ever more necessary.
As a shareholder in Christiania (previously), this got me to thinking: what is the potential lifespan of intentional, alternative communities in the United States? A mixture of aggressive development policies under Giuliani and gentrification in the East Village hastened the privatization of many squats (to varying degrees of success) there. Cohousing has proved tricky, since the legal structure and code requirements in a lot of areas in the US make it a lot harder than it needs to be. With housing crises in three hottest housing markets in the United States, market-based solutions are unsurprisingly exacerbating the problem. Given that the next big idea seems to be just making things smaller, the need for viable multi-generational alternative housing options grows ever more necessary.
Opponents of the group say that the state is unlikely to sell the land and that its efforts will lead to the dreaded zoning and building codes, health and sanitation rules.
How I imagine their community meetings go.
posted by sbutler at 11:56 AM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
How I imagine their community meetings go.
posted by sbutler at 11:56 AM on March 12, 2015 [4 favorites]
I think you can't be involved in an illegal "taking" and then talk about the problems of privatization. The land already belongs to someone else, the residents have just chosen to disregard that. Politics aside, I'm not sure what is different here from the rancher dude in Utah, Clive Bundy (?).
I understand that the options are really limited for this kind of "free" living, but as Dylan said, "to live outside the law, you must be honest." At some point reality intrudes. I've never felt that squats were an answer writ large. At best they are temporary autonomous zones. They are, by definition, alive in inaction of others.
posted by OmieWise at 12:00 PM on March 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
I understand that the options are really limited for this kind of "free" living, but as Dylan said, "to live outside the law, you must be honest." At some point reality intrudes. I've never felt that squats were an answer writ large. At best they are temporary autonomous zones. They are, by definition, alive in inaction of others.
posted by OmieWise at 12:00 PM on March 12, 2015 [5 favorites]
Which is all a depressing thing to have written, but I felt the same way about Ruby Ridge and places like that, where people were allowed to say "fuck the government" until the government began to give a damn. Then they cried when the "government" said "NO, FUCK YOU" right back. It takes more than a wish, an ideology (or lack thereof), and a gun to change the status quo.
posted by OmieWise at 12:02 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by OmieWise at 12:02 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
The contrast between the two New York Times articles, 11 years apart, is interesting. Did being featured in Into The Wild transform a post-apocalyptic hellhole into an endangered hippie paradise, or was that always just a matter of perception?
posted by acb at 12:08 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by acb at 12:08 PM on March 12, 2015 [1 favorite]
market-based solutions are unsurprisingly exacerbating the problem
This statement would make sense in a world where North American cities don't explicitly prevent the market from providing additional housing in wealthy neighbourhoods where gentrification isn't a concern.
posted by ripley_ at 12:23 PM on March 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
This statement would make sense in a world where North American cities don't explicitly prevent the market from providing additional housing in wealthy neighbourhoods where gentrification isn't a concern.
posted by ripley_ at 12:23 PM on March 12, 2015 [3 favorites]
This land belongs to.....no. If you want to grab land owned before you eyeballed it, then you need to be 1. A government and 2. Use something called Doctrine of Discovery, used to ste al lands from indigenous peoples.
posted by Postroad at 12:28 PM on March 12, 2015
posted by Postroad at 12:28 PM on March 12, 2015
Cohousing can work okay in US real-estate markets less nuts than New York, it's just that since it's even then generally based on homeownership, it ends up skewing pretty bourgeois by necessity. The way housing is tied to economics in the US, with homeownership as the default (and incentivized) form of primary savings for the middle class, causes big problems in ways that are totally extrinsic to whatever the other issues of social life-cycle are around intentional communities. It's too common that people writing on these problems seem to get the purely economic pressures and distortions confused with the more purely social questions about how to live together.
posted by RogerB at 12:40 PM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by RogerB at 12:40 PM on March 12, 2015 [2 favorites]
One that sparks my interest is the Sawyer Hill EcoVillage in Massachusetts. AIUI, it's just a condo complex
No, it's a cohousing community (or two). But the fact that cohousing is amenable to that kind of soft-sell — "it's just a condo with some communitarian add-ons, not a hippie/cult commune" — is sometimes an important feature, when pitching it to the cultural mainstream.
posted by RogerB at 1:12 PM on March 12, 2015
No, it's a cohousing community (or two). But the fact that cohousing is amenable to that kind of soft-sell — "it's just a condo with some communitarian add-ons, not a hippie/cult commune" — is sometimes an important feature, when pitching it to the cultural mainstream.
posted by RogerB at 1:12 PM on March 12, 2015
I live in a condo, few units, the HOA Pres is the Little Runt King of the biggest evil he can muster. I'm gonna rent this place out and wander down there next fall. Actually I am not sociable enough for that. I think I'll find a private patch of low desert to inhabit, next winter.
This economic system won't be satisfied until we are all pink slime making hamburgers look palatable. What the world does to nomads is criminal. I love the concept of the slabs, a fine place for a Haj.
posted by Oyéah at 1:13 PM on March 12, 2015
This economic system won't be satisfied until we are all pink slime making hamburgers look palatable. What the world does to nomads is criminal. I love the concept of the slabs, a fine place for a Haj.
posted by Oyéah at 1:13 PM on March 12, 2015
I think it's fascinating that trying to preserve Salvation Mountain may be what's set this land ownership discussion in motion. That's a really beautiful and moving folk art environment, I really hope it gets preserved. It seems likely that any group who cares enough about that art would also be friendly to Slab City, but maybe any real estate discussion at all casts some uncomfortable light on the question of land ownership and use.
posted by Nelson at 3:41 PM on March 12, 2015
posted by Nelson at 3:41 PM on March 12, 2015
No, it's a cohousing community (or two). But the fact that cohousing is amenable to that kind of soft-sell — "it's just a condo with some communitarian add-ons, not a hippie/cult commune" — is sometimes an important feature, when pitching it to the cultural mainstream.
There's also the practical matter of knowing that there's just enough good fences between good neighbors that the residents won't want to give your family an inspection bordering on a reality show, nor would they feel the need to, because your moving on (and your moving out) would not place them at much economic risk.
posted by ocschwar at 7:57 PM on March 12, 2015
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One that sparks my interest is the Sawyer Hill EcoVillage in Massachusetts. AIUI, it's just a condo complex that's designed to facilitate the kind of environmentally conscious and child-friendly living most Mefites want for themselves.
I'd love to live in such a place, but there's no real way to buy enough land in MA for a critically-massed place like Sawyer Hill, except beyond 495.
posted by ocschwar at 11:49 AM on March 12, 2015