My Directions

[Originally posted January 30, 2012 at longevity.stanford.edu. Photo since added.]

I’m excited to start my explorations on this blog with the Stanford Center on Longevity. My story starts three years ago at Stanford where I first discovered intentional communities in the form of the seven undergraduate co-operative houses (“co-ops”). Today, I’ve lived in three of Stanford’s co-ops (Synergy, Chi Theta Chi, and the Enchanted Broccoli Forest), joined an off-campus co-op (EcoMagic), and even joined up with 20 of my Stanford co-op friends and started a new co-op, Ithaka, last year. Currently I’m a proud resident of Synergy and serve as Stanford’s Co-operative Living Peer Advisor, a job that empowers me to help coordinate and assist the co-ops and to spend a lot of time thinking about cooperative living and intentional communities.

I’m clearly a pretty big advocate of the cooperative lifestyle for a number of reasons. I find the connections between any given residents to be far more warm, intimate, and authentic than those between typical neighbors in apartments or in other large student-house arrangements. I’ve also seen a strong bent towards environmental consciousness and sustainable decision-making when it comes to the sourcing of house supplies and food. I think the group purchasing of bulk supplies makes it easier for people to get what they need through more ethical routes within intentional communities. I also see great promise in open, accepting communities that aim to foster the passions and interests of community members: communities that are purposely oriented around the thriving of their members.

That’s been my experience so far, and as I look beyond Stanford into my young adult years and even well into old age, I ask myself, “What else is out there? What’s next?” And therein lies my motivation for learning about aging in community.

I want to know:

• What community models currently exist?
• Which ones seem to be doing well? Which ones not so well?
• What factors make a living community well-suited for old people?
• Where are the fronts of innovation and experimentation within the realm of “aging in community?”
• Which of these models hold broad appeal to the public? Why or why not?
• What about a community allows for the mental and physical thriving of people as they age?
• Do people want to live in more open, sharing communities, or do they want to maintain their separateness and total privacy?
• For those who do want a more intentional aging community, what barriers exist to their finding one?
• What kind of community models do people actually want, and for what reasons? What role do they want friends, family, and neighbors to play as they enter into their finals acts of life?

I’m hoping to talk to people who can help enlighten me along all these dimensions and more, and I’m happy to have readership and commentary along the way. Feel free to reach out with any ideas you have as well!