Intentional communities are a core part of the permaculture movement but many people are unfamiliar with what the phrase means. Some instantly get a picture of a hippie commune, where everybody shares everything and no one has anything and people are living in tents. Well, that can be one version of such a community, but isn’t for everybody.
And that is the point - Intentional means something that is intended; even more specific - something that you have intended, if you are a part of such a community. It describes a group of people who have come together with a common intent - whatever that intention or goal or goals may be.
This means that it is, by nature, voluntary. It is something you choose to intend. You can change your mind and intend something different. Or the community can do so, as a group.
How is that different from the community you live in? Imagine living with people who are like minded in a general sense, of how they want to live and what they want to achieve. Would that be better than randomly moving into a neighborhood of others who have done the same? Would it be easier to get support or work together on projects of mutual benefit, or create the environment you’d most like to live in and experience?
An intentional community doesn’t have to live together to be one. A church is an intentional community, or a Rotary Club, or any other voluntary organization. In a neighborhood, you can create intentional community around a single activity, like a community garden, or a yearly neighborhood barbeque, or ??
You can create an intentional community of TimeBank members in your city, who get together and explore beneficial connections with one another. In other words, you don’t have to buy land together and live together to create a beneficial community. Though doing so can be very rewarding, if done right!
Many people love the idea of finding like minded people and moving to a remote property in the mountains to create an ideal community. That has its challenges, but it is far from impossible. And when done right, can be heavenly. Many groups have done it successfully.
Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, a very successful long term intentional community near Sebastopol, Calif.
In this section, we’re going to talk about some of the things that are key to making intentional communities of any level successful. In our Further Study section, we include many templates of successful models for gardens, tool sharing, and other aspects of intentional community. There are dozens more of these out there, and we urge you to seek them out for any group activity you are interested in doing. Chances are, others have tried something similar, and some have documented their successes well. There are a few common denominators we’ve seen among these successes.