Communitarian land ownership
A lot of millennials have no interest in buying a house. What they notice (many times from observing their parents) is that home ownership can be expensive and burdensome. It can also be a very atomizing experience (one’s attention is so tied up in maintaining the homestead).
But renting from a property management company can feel very institutional.
Here’s an alternative: Join a community land cooperative (CLC) and become a renter/owner.
You pay rent for your unit. But you’re an owner of the overall co-op on the basis of buying shares
So: instead of buying property, you buy shares in a property-owning cooperative.
A CLC can be a locus of participatory democracy and ecological best-practice. It can be the basis for fostering neighborhood integrity, liberating land from the speculative real estate marketplace, and countervailing gentrification.
A CLC could own a city block, a whole neighborhood, a suburban tract, or a country ecovillage. It could include commercial units. A green city could be an agglomeration of CLC’s. A small, co-op-oriented town could encompass one general township CLC based directly and simply on residence rather than on share ownership.
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People wonder what to do to start building the new society within the shell of the old. There are myriad different initiatives, projects, programs. We want to base our praxis on the Ten Key Values of the Greens: Ecology, Community, Responsibility, Democracy, Justice, Feminism, Sustainability, Nonviolence, Decentralization, Diversity. What a world that would be! Some steps to take: Establish a CLC. Commit to a place. Steward the land. Grow food. Share stuff. Live simply. Build community. Enjoy life.
