As I commented over on the NY mag site, I've visited the group's meetings and I'm impressed with their green vision. Don't count 'em out yet on the second site -- having a friendly new owner in place may actually buy them time to get their financing in order, and result in a better deal than they could have gotten with the first one.

You noted that you're "still not convinced there’s an actual growing trend of co-ops, intentional communities, co-housing buildings, and other arrangements that fall into the communal living category."

I'll leave it to the statisticians to define what constitutes "a growing trend," but there are more than 120 established cohousing neighborhoods in the U.S. over the last two decades, and more than 100 under development, even in today's challenging real estate market.

I'm on the board of Fellowship for Intentional Community (FIC), and it is seeing large increases in traffic on its directory searches, and many new listings, as you wrote about in your 10/1 blog post.

The best way to assess for yourself whether living in one of these "intentional neighborhoods" is right for you is to visit one: there are long-established communities in DC (Takoma Park area) and Silver Spring, as well as in the greater Dulles area. A forming group is working on a potential Falls Church project.

Your best local resource to learn more about all these is the strong regional group in the area, Mid-Atlantic Cohousing: http://www.MidAtlanticCohousing.org/

Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach
Planning for Sustainable Communities (Berkeley, CA)