Just a quick update for those dying to know how our weekend was. The place was cool and the people nice, but it was really only a short step up from standard suburban communities. They built Energy Star certified homes, recycle, group buy organic foods, carpool down into Ithaca, centralize hot water and laundry facilities, and have group meals a few times a week. It very similar in many ways to a Mitchell Lama building with its committees and concensus decision making.

The down side was there was no efforts at self-sustainability, very little efforts to keep costs down, and no sense of making their lives easier. The up side is their vision is pretty accessable to many people, really anyone currently living an upper middle class suburban lifestyle.

In short, not what we are looking for but we learned a lot and had a good time.