Don’t rely on people merely saying “I will totally join the community”, no matter how convincing they sound. When it comes time to actually buy some land or building, expect that less than half of them will actually join. (Worst case: you spend your money or take a loan to buy the land/building, only to find out that actually no one joins you. Yes, there will always be an excuse: the timing is wrong; we wanted to live in a forest, but not that part of a forest, etc.) Take it as a serious project, make written agreements.
Make sure all of you can agree on the same vision. Put that vision in writing, because people have selective memory, and a few months later one will remember that “we agreed on X”, while another will rememeber that “it was always supposed to be Y”. Make sure you agree on the near-mode details, not just the far-mode applause lights. (There was an example of a group of people who moved to forest to get away from civilization. Turned out, half of them opposed civilization in principle, other half just wanted to live in a more green and less stressful environment away from the town. They started okay, but an unsolvable conflict emerged when the latter part wanted to bring internet connection to the village, which the former part opposed in principle.)
Think about all details of the life style: What kind of sexual behavior do you expect in your communities? What is your position on drugs? Are people going to have kids, and does that require increased safety or quiet at night? What kinds of religion are accepted? Is it okay if community members participate in politics? In other words, communicate explicitly and in detail what behavior will be okay, and what behavior will not be okay.
Make a formal decision-making process. Saying “oh, we will just solve everything by a consensus” is pretty much a disaster guaranteed to happen. (Consensus is easy while people generally agree with each other. You need a method to make decisions when they don’t. Without clear rules, some people will try to win by increasing pressure, and soon everyone will go: “unless you do it my way, I quit”.)
Avoid insane people, or generally people who generate tons of drama around them. One such person can be enough to destroy the whole community; there will be already enough problems happening naturally. Have formal rules for accepting new member of the community (e.g. some trial period, and approval by majority of existing members).
Make sure your community has someone with technical skills, and someone with people skills.
There is already a book on this topic: Creating a Life Together: Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities. Yes, it focuses on ecological communities, but most of the lessons seem to be universal.
Some things I remember:
Don’t rely on people merely saying “I will totally join the community”, no matter how convincing they sound. When it comes time to actually buy some land or building, expect that less than half of them will actually join. (Worst case: you spend your money or take a loan to buy the land/building, only to find out that actually no one joins you. Yes, there will always be an excuse: the timing is wrong; we wanted to live in a forest, but not that part of a forest, etc.) Take it as a serious project, make written agreements.
Make sure all of you can agree on the same vision. Put that vision in writing, because people have selective memory, and a few months later one will remember that “we agreed on X”, while another will rememeber that “it was always supposed to be Y”. Make sure you agree on the near-mode details, not just the far-mode applause lights. (There was an example of a group of people who moved to forest to get away from civilization. Turned out, half of them opposed civilization in principle, other half just wanted to live in a more green and less stressful environment away from the town. They started okay, but an unsolvable conflict emerged when the latter part wanted to bring internet connection to the village, which the former part opposed in principle.)
Think about all details of the life style: What kind of sexual behavior do you expect in your communities? What is your position on drugs? Are people going to have kids, and does that require increased safety or quiet at night? What kinds of religion are accepted? Is it okay if community members participate in politics? In other words, communicate explicitly and in detail what behavior will be okay, and what behavior will not be okay.
Make a formal decision-making process. Saying “oh, we will just solve everything by a consensus” is pretty much a disaster guaranteed to happen. (Consensus is easy while people generally agree with each other. You need a method to make decisions when they don’t. Without clear rules, some people will try to win by increasing pressure, and soon everyone will go: “unless you do it my way, I quit”.)
Avoid insane people, or generally people who generate tons of drama around them. One such person can be enough to destroy the whole community; there will be already enough problems happening naturally. Have formal rules for accepting new member of the community (e.g. some trial period, and approval by majority of existing members).
Make sure your community has someone with technical skills, and someone with people skills.