Table of Contents
Eco Village Retirement
(updated November, 2020)
Boomer retirement – what does it look like? Eco village retirement?
Millions of us who have already retired or at least are not working near as much or as hard as we did a few years back.
It have been the tradition for some decades now for a large portion of retirees to move to communities designed and managed especially for us, the older ones.
Some are settling into the beach communities, mountain resorts, and country clubs. They are settling in communal living villages. That is not much different from wealthy retirees for decades.
Baby Boomers, especially the former hippies, are looking for novel options of where to spend their remaining years.
Are some 60s Folks in their 60s headed back to the commune roots? Really? That seems to be the case for some. It has really peeked my interest.
Hippie Retirement Commune
When I saw an article, Peace, Love, and Social Security: Baby Boomers Retire to the Commune, in the Atlantic Monthly I was skeptical. But, I hooked enough to read it. I followed up with doing some research on The Farm, which is the subject of the article. A whole new world of 21st century communal living opened up before me.
From the article – “Laird Schaub, the executive secretary of the Fellowship for Intentional Community, estimates that the United States has about 4,000 intentional communities with a combined population of about 100,000.” Wow, I had no idea there was that wide of a participation in something that was only on the peripheral of my radar back in the 60s.
The Farm – Tennessee
It is not all, or even very much, self indulgence. The Farm offers courses, apprenticeships, and practices midwifery, holistic medicine, and ecology. A statement on one of their websites says, “We choose to live in community where we share our lives and fortunes, good times and hard times. We feel that we can be stronger and more useful together than we could be separately.” Maybe they have something to teach the world, and just maybe we are more willing to listen now than back in the 60s.
Fellowship for Intentional Community
The Fellowship for Intentional Community has a website that is worth a look. It might even be a resource for many of us who find the present economy forcing us to look at novel, innovative retirement opportunities.
The Fellowship for Intentional Community site has a list, state by state, of commune around the country and the world. Might be something for us each to look into one near us and report back.
Spiritual communities have been around for a long time. The directory on the website list those. Other categories include Ecovillages and Co-housing communities.
Retirement Communes Around the Globe
They also list Communes. There are 259 of them. Only 50 are in the United States. Many are Eco Village Retirement destinations.
As you would expect, some are back in locations where the 1960s counter culture was spawned and grew. Magic, in Palo Alto, California is one such community. Magic community and the service organization upon a yet-to-be widely recognized connection between science and value: Ideas about value entail prediction; science is the sole demonstrated means for making predictions better than can be made by chance. We perceive that valuescience is key to accurately discerning and realizing value.”
Without a doubt, this is a Eco Village retirement option.
Not too far from Duke University (go Blue Devils) is Elderberry Co-Housing Village.
As a rural community would imply, we have created community vegetable gardens and areas for animals with the intention of being mindful of protecting the ecological integrity of the land, with the goal of becoming an ecovillage, and as self reliant as possible.
Elderberry is a self-managed, consensus-based community where all members have equal voice in decisions. The community was founded by three members of a nearby intentional community and is self developed.
Communal village retirement? Maybe. It has become a real option for we Baby Boomers. If your finances are a bit low for retirement or you are just looking for a novel way of living in your later years, Communes might be ideal for you.