Um, Native American culture didn’t “fail” in any sort of competition. They were slaughtered by better armed European American invaders.</p>
<p>I agree that the American dream of individual home ownership is problematic and wasteful from an environmental standpoint. The accompanying suburban sprawl reinforces our dependence on cars and lack of investment in mass transit. This lifestyle is uniquely American.</p>
<p>I personally prefer the apartment living I have experienced in Europe, Asia, and South America, though I have to admit really hating the cramped NYC apartments I have visited. Kids seem to enjoy learning at an early age how to negotiate mass transit and not depending on parents as chauffeurs. My own children would have easily traded this for the large backyard that they never used. I should add that the apartments abroad were much better built and had thicker walls than the American apartments I have lived in – I’ve had some awful experiences with noisy apartment neighbors here, but never abroad. </p>
<p>I don’t think there is anything inherent to the “American character” that makes our current system unchangeable. There are a lot of historical reasons we have ended up with this model, the main one being the incredibly low population density of this country and relative cheapness of land. As others have mentioned, there are groups currently experimenting with communal living. Here’s one in Ithaca, NY: [Ecovillage</a> at Ithaca](<a href=“http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/]Ecovillage”>http://www.ecovillage.ithaca.ny.us/)</p>
<p>So we’re letting comfort levels get in the way of saving college money and the planet? I think it is prudent to make an initial investment in discomfort so we don’t get much more discomfort (i.e. ecological disaster and/or running out of funds) later. Plus, I don’t think your younger kids would complain – they would grow up used to that sort of environment.</p>
<p>Plus, it’s not sharing <em>one</em> kitchen with 450 households, more like sharing a dozen (or two) very large industrial-sized kitchens with 450 households, equipped with the all the cool equipment of your dreams. You could probably do away with that for low-income housing, but all that cool cooking equipment you see on TV would actually be affordable (and be used efficiently) in a communal setting. Industrial-sized deep-fryer, extra-large blasting sprayhose to do the dishes with with a big suction pump connected to the sink to create large convection currents… I dunno, it would seem pretty attractive to dedicated cooks.</p>
<p>War, either overt or covert, declared or undeclared, formal or informal, is indeed a competition. The Native Americans “lost” in the sense that their various cultures were subsumed into the dominent European American culture. </p>
<p>Of course the Native American cultures had influence and effect on the evolution of American society. Many Native American customs and groups are an integral part of our modern society.</p>
<p>This says nothing about the value or sustainabiity of the myriad Native American cultures. It is just a fact that they were less good at war.</p>
<p>This is the crucial point: for some sort of large collective to work, it has to have some sort of communal goal. I lived in a small communally-run house as an undergrad. We were bound by religion and by providing a community resource. That worked reasonably well, with a few serious bumps in the road. A few years after graduation, the spouse and I moved into a townhouse in a small condo complex. The only bond between us and the other residents was maintaining the property. That ended up being a very frail reed. The older residents were far less interested in increasing homeowner dues so we could have a larger emergency fund, and so we could start saving for an eventual complex-wide reroofing. It became so frustrating that we ended up moving to a single-family house, where we could be assured that all of the homeowners shared our perspective on maintenance funds. :)</p>
<p>We have friends who live on a kibbutz. We’ve visited them; tiny houses, large expansive grounds, community recreational resources, supportive community. There are obvious plusses and minuses, and we could probably hack the lifestyle, warts and all. On the other hand, I can’t imagine doing the same thing with our immediate neighbors. </p>
<p>I do like the idea of communal living as a senior citizen, sharing resources (cook, occasional nurse, handyperson).</p>
<p>Actually from a scientific perspective it’d be inefficient not to have any religion at all, but I don’t really see how this applies here.</p>
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<p>Also, it often wasn’t white man against native American. The tribes fought amongst themselves. Some cooperated with the federal government because … some tribes had traditional, even ceremonial enemies. Did I mention those serving as scouts? Maybe the story would be different had Tecumseh’s Alliance not fallen so quickly. This really says nothing about native American culture (and not all of them were heavily communalised). </p>
<p>Also I think the Native Americans turned to the appropriate tactics too late. By the late 19th century, they had resorted to repeating guns and hit and run tactics, which were very effective, but by that time they had lost so much ground and population that rather than this being a highly resistant defence, it was more of annoyance. Many were also complacent. For all their concerns, the US was merely a powerful newcomer tribe in the East. And it was partially a matter of geography: the Plains had no Thermopylae, no Plataea, no Marathon, to compel a united alliance like the Greeks did for the Persians.</p>
<p>“So we’re letting comfort levels get in the way of saving college money and the planet?”</p>
<p>I don’t have children. I don’t need to save college money, and it means I’ll have less impact on the planet than an any two-child couple in your utopia. And if you’re arguing for maximal energy conservation, you should be eating raw vegan food, not frying it in cool gizmos.</p>
<p>The organic food movement is actually not very economically sustainable. For one, it is against genetic engineering and genetic progress, which promise to make resource use very efficient.</p>
<p>Secondly I don’t really see how livestock consume any more fossil fuel energy than vegetables. Never really bought that argument. The grass or grain they might eat wouldn’t be eaten by humans anyway and they all came from photosynthetic material, not fossil fuels. Never really bought that argument.</p>
<p>Thirdly, it’s actually much more problematic (and ineffective) to try to achieve a balanced diet the vegan way.</p>
<p>Fourthly, because the prerequisities for fried materials can often arrive frozen or powdered (think curry), whereas to eat something raw, presumably, it must be fresh, it would actually be more cost-effective to mass produce for 500 households via cooking, rather than give them 10,000 celery bunches that presumably must all arrive in fresh condition.</p>
<p>Fresh vegetables actually cost MORE than chicken in my weekly grocery budget. I’ve been turning to canned alternatives (for the more expensive things like tomatoes, for instance).</p>
<p>We have a place in the burbs and a place in the city and there things that I like and don’t like about both. We also have a place in Singapore which is currently rented out. I’ve spent some time there and what they’ve done with so few resources is remarkable.</p>
<p>But there are some advantages to lower population densities.</p>
<p>“The grass or grain they might eat wouldn’t be eaten by humans anyway and they all came from photosynthetic material, not fossil fuels.”</p>
<p>OK, now you’ve confirmed that it’s not worth arguing with you. You think that it doesn’t take fossil fuels to grow grain. Got it. I won’t waste my time any more.</p>
<p>Entropy. A consumer can usually use only about 10 percent of the energy contained in the link below it in the food chain- so, it takes 10 pounds of grain to sustain one pound of cow. Therefore, it’s more energy efficient to take links out of the food chain. While it’s true that a pure vegetarian diet causes nutritional problems (B12 deficiency for one), most Americans eat way more meat than they need to.</p>
<p>Residents continue to riot for the sixth straight day at Galoisien Estates in Santa Utopia, California. An experiment in communal living, Galoisien Estates, locally known as the Cinderblock Tinderbox, has a troubled history. While some praise the experiment as ecologically sound and economically efficient, many residents apparently lack the modicum of community spirit needed to deal with the minor restrictions that inevitably accompany revolutionary progress in housing. </p>
<p>The spark point for the current disturbances is unclear. Some residents blame the Dwibble family, who allegedly refused to adhere to their allocated time in the living room, the pleasant and quiet interval from 4:00 am to 4:15 am. Others noted that the practice schedule of the Galoisien Saxophone Quintet has often conflicted with naptime for infants at Galoisien Community Daycare. An informed source who refused to give his name said that the Frendiks became exasperated a week ago, when they had to clean the automatic chestnut puree-er for the 57th time before using it, thus cutting into their 6 minutes and 37 seconds of food preparation time. A mop-up crew in hazmat suits continues to remove chestnut residue from the communal kitchen, which should re-open later today. All residents agree, however, that the range of kitchen equipment is unmatched in their experience, even if the condition of the equipment resembles that usually found in the apartments of seventh-year graduate students. But while rage has long simmered beneath the surface, perhaps it was the experience of Roger Billbob that provoked the confrontation leading to this week’s riots. Having fallen asleep at work one time too many, due to a shower schedule from 3:21 am to 3:24 am, six days ago Mr. Billbob unilaterally decided to shift his shower time to 6:37 to 6:40 am, outraging all three residents who had been guaranteed 60 seconds within that time range. Later that same morning, chain-reaction collisions involving a dozen skateboarders and six tricyclists did nothing to calm the mood. And now, turning to our reporter on the scene, Gerald Riviera . . . </p>
<p>Seriously, galoisien, if you can get a group together, go for it. I won’t be joining you, though.</p>
<p>Don’t blame the building industry. Regulation has killed the small housing market.</p>
<p>Building codes make building shared and multi-family housing much more expensive and complicated to build, then single family housing. Egress, size, materials, safety are all more expensive. Shared septic systems need to be inspected every year - where as single family homes don’t need to be inspected at all. Why spend more money to build housing that will sell for less? </p>
<p>Zoning regulation pushes minimum lot sizes of 2 acres, and town can pass rules prohibiting more then one dwelling or one structure on a lot. That’s a defacto prohibition against small/ multi-family housing. To build small lot, or multifamily, or shared housing, a builder has a zoning fight on thier hand. Who wants to spend 6 years in court, getting a zoning appeal ruling.</p>
<p>State regulations and case law treat landlords as the bad guys, with ever increasing regulations and costs. We need to top abusing the folks who provide rental housing.</p>
<p>And don’t even get me started on states redlining every field and drainage ditch as environmentally sensitive, need an $50,000 Environmental impact report. </p>
<p>The model where every factory worker or truck driver gets a 3 bedroom house on two acres, on a foundation of subprime financing is failing/crashing/over. Americans are going to need to readjust their expections: a house is not a constitutional right. So, if not in a single family privately owned house, where do folks live? It is just not worth it to Investors/developers to fight all this regulation to build small housing. So where does the housing come from? Nowhere - until the regulations change</p>
<p>I’d build small shared housing or be a landlord if I were not abused by the public or slammed with regulations above those applied to single family homes.</p>
<p>Interesting, because the organic food movement would rather have us using expensive nitrogen fertilisers derived from industrial processes than genetic engineering to cut down on artificial fertiliser use radically.</p>
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<p>Yes, but how much free energy did we actually waste?</p>
<p>Sure meat production consumes more resources, but often these are resources that wouldn’t have been tapped anyway (and they are renewable resources).</p>
<p>I like to think that I use meat efficiently; I find dairy products invaluable and in the past 2 weeks I’ve only used four dollars’ worth of chicken (I think I’ve used about 3 times that much in vegetables). A little meat goes a long way, and I find the proteins and enzymes contained in primary consumers to go a long way.</p>
<p>Herbivores can digest cellulose, which like makes up 90% of the world’s biomass. Humans can’t. I’d say meat production <em>can</em> be efficient.</p>
<p>No I do think toadstool’s point is a very interesting insight into why the market doesn’t seem to exist – I thought it was culture, but at the same time, maybe culture also provides for the legal suppression of affordable housing. </p>
<p>(Actually I was about to respond to it earlier but I had to wash the dishes before my roomie got mad…since the pots are shared, she demands I wash them right after cooking, i.e. I can’t procrastinate on washing the dishes. But hey, I’m saving money++) </p>
<p>Is there perhaps a way to raise a public consciousness on this? I really think this should go beyond experiment … and maybe an actual <em>market</em>. Federal intervention maybe (housing as interstate commerce?). Sometimes I think zoning regulation can be effective … when done enlightenedly and maybe there needs to be more checks on zoning power to ensure it isn’t merely arbitrary or isn’t actually hindering the public good.</p>
<p>Zoning regulations are a source of frustration to me as a renter in St. Louis. Some of my friends and I were looking into moving into a 7-bedroom house- enough of us that we would fill the majority of the bedrooms. However, if more than three people who have different last names live in a building, it needs a boarding house permit. The city doesn’t grant boarding house permits unless you fill out a grand total of five separate forms, gather signatures from all neighbors within a quarter mile, and pay a variety of fees, and even then it’s still not a sure thing. We’re all going to medical school, so the hassle wasn’t worth it. We settled for other options. A family of four could live there, but that would be more house than they need. And so the house sits empty for the last year or so.</p>
<p>LOL I like your post, as critical as it is, it makes me laugh.</p>
<p>Really I think all family units need their own private living rooms, but they don’t have to be very large living rooms – the kind of room where you would chill out together, read stories (alone as a family), etc. But the room to run around, make giant train/domino setups could be efficiently done in a larger shared communal lounge. Plus, I think children would jump at a chance to make an 80,000 domino setup, or … a train arrangement with 3000 track pieces, 50 switches, 20 bridges, 3 levels of terrain and 200 stations. They would have to learn to cooperate with other children to do it, and what far-reaching effects would such lessons have when they grow up? </p>
<p>I don’t think blocks of time need to be exceptionally strict. Probably the more affluent you are, you could choose estates that have less crowding issues. It’s really a range you can choose from. In low-income housing, it would be either in the streets, parking lot, sketchy neighbourhoods, or having to cooperate with your fellow man. Tough decision.</p>