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thinking about this community map this part of twitter is interesting coz ppl realised they could move right, from temporary to permanent online relationships then the swarm of camps proved we can do temporary local community now the big Q: how to land in the bottom right? https://t.co/RNN2S4WEHr



I have fairly thorough documentation of the move to "temporary + local", mostly 2-5 day events for 20-500 people: https://t.co/f7UxrsEJll

and there's some weak signals of a move to "medium-term + local": 1 to 3-month residencies: https://t.co/8G83EsFRlR but these are all definitely temporary encounters, nobody plans to make a long term commitment permanent + local is not well charted in these parts

1st thing I get from this map: I realise I'm only really interested in community organising if it is heading towards the bottom right quadrant top right and bottom left are interesting places for practice, experimentation, recruiting, deepening... but they're all low stakes

2nd thing: I think many people are instinctively heading bottom-rightwards, but a lot of them lack details about what the destination actually looks like I wanna make a rough chart of what some of the options are for permanent local community

when I start mapping the Permanent Local subtypes, there are loads of dimensions: - urban / rural - residential / non-residential - polycentric / singular - etc maybe its helpful to draw a clear image for each of these options, so people know which one they're steering towards

I think the most desirable option for the younger ppl in tpot is polycentric, urban + residential: many small shared houses within cycling distance, informally organised, no central coordination, porous boundaries, ~no meetings

personally I find the idea of any large scale (>10 people) coliving experiment utterly unappealing unless it is polycentric. commune / gated community / a big apartment building with one coordinating committee... yuck

I think there's a risk that large scale projects attract capital/attention/hype and soak up people who would be happier in a polycentric neighbourhood polycentric is probably harder to start tho I hear good rumours about The Neighborhood in SF: https://t.co/sDPkdTc1iJ

this winter Nati & I are running a 3 month prototype for a permanent + local + rural space for short community gatherings hubs like this don't provide much long term living, but do add density to the social graph for the people visiting https://t.co/hhqKqahy84

ideally our place will play a similar role to Elkenmist a permanent place, but with less focus on permanent residents and more focus on densifying connections between visitors from the extended global scene https://t.co/lJfFJh0M3j

here's an inside look at The Neighborhood in SF https://t.co/VOiX5PIFVI

also seems crucial to have urban non-residential infrastructure, communal lounge/hangout/gallery/party/project space aka "third space" like BridgeSpace PDX, Commons SF, Medley in Berlin (RIP), Blivande in Stockholm... seems extremely hard to make these sustainable tho

Fractal is a bit like the NYC version of The Neighborhood SF https://t.co/l0ZoktPUaz

@RichDecibels @harry_taussig @Prigoose it is exactly this: > polycentric, urban, residential: many small shared houses within cycling distance, informally organised, no central coordination, porous boundaries, ~no meetings it's 11 separately governed apartments in a big loft building in nyc w a communal 3rd space

this map implies that it's possible/natural to move from online to local community, but I want to be clear I don't know if that's true. there's a chance that online is basically a distraction and the sensible path is to focus on local from the outset

Octo wrote a cool thread in parallel to mine https://t.co/NAQomjemlF

Excellent thread @RichDecibels, adding some thoughts here on: 1) the function of online 2) why the temporary local is crucial 3) how to move to permanent local 4) saving communes with polycentrism 5) the map as a living pipeline 6) missing dimensions next to the social https://t.co/a9yrtgNqKm https://t.co/n3LjO9qJvc


@RichDecibels I am thinking about a big house in the mountains like J Krishnamurti had Not necessarily trying to make it a business or retreat center or anything, though it could be those things sometimes More like Rivendell

@RichDecibels started adding my 2 cents and ended up spilling a whole wallet over it https://t.co/j0pqG971b5

Excellent thread @RichDecibels, adding some thoughts here on: 1) the function of online 2) why the temporary local is crucial 3) how to move to permanent local 4) saving communes with polycentrism 5) the map as a living pipeline 6) missing dimensions next to the social https://t.co/a9yrtgNqKm https://t.co/n3LjO9qJvc
