So another type of community I recently discovered is an agrihood or agrivillage. These are larger communities with lots of households, which encompass a farm or large community garden area for people to connect with. They’re a little less organized than most intentional communities, have more houses, but they try to design with sustainability in mind and have a focus on connection with the earth and neighbourhood involvement, many have a “community center” which is small so its more like a commonhouse. Regarding decision-making I don’t think its as connected as most communities are.
Have other folks heard about these or experienced them? What do you think? There’s one advertized here in the classifieds section, but all the other ones I’ve found in my research don’t seem to have a presence on ic.org and I’m surprised.
Well our first-time homebuyer counselor says it will be a goodly while before we can buy anything, our credit needs some serious work. 
This means we’ll just stay in our apartment complex for the time being and not focus on community goals. Additionally I’ve discovered that I’m more in love with self-agency and autonomy than I realized and so I think we’re steering away from intentional community ideas. I do though want to work toward creating more community feelings where I’m at right now in our apartment complex. Making more community where I am instead of trying to get somewhere that already has it. And having it be more social-based instead of collaborative decision-making based (since our complex won’t let us make the decisions anyways :()
Will I ever come back to the idea of community? Maybe, in the form of an agrihood/agrivillage. It seems to be the model that works best for people who crave autonomy but want something a little closer than an average neighbourhood. Which is where we’re at right now in our vision of our future.
After a break I’ve returned to the idea of intentional community, whether agrivillage or cohousing or whatnot, it seems to be something I can’t shake, which might mean that in the right situation it would be right for us. General neighbours just don’t want to get involved, at least in this complex, and I found myself starting to fall into those thought patterns too, which isn’t like me. So here I showed up back here about a month ago to learn some more, observe, listen, and see what might happen next.
Hellos!
I haven’t heard of the term agrovillages before. However, the IC ecovillage that I envision has a farm at the heart of it and opperates in part like a service IC donating some food to local communities in need. It would need one full-time farmer and help from members in the community.
It would need to be set up about 30 minutes from a city. I think there is a lot of room for AND in our world as I see us being able to support the community AND donate food in service to others.
It would also include a few co-op businesses so the ecovillage is self sustaining. I see it as a larger community also trying to meet the housing needs of folks on an equity basis. So many people need help with lodging and food security these days.
I’m near Chicago, where are you located?
Thanks,
Dan
Unfortunately we don’t live near each other, I’m in Oregon, in a small city a half hour south of Portland, I’m flexible to move to another small city near Portland, there are many, but I’m not in a position to move far away, aging parents, and I’m someone with multiple disabilities who doesn’t feel that moving so far from my support system is wise for me. But what you describe sounds exactly right for me in many other ways. I hope you can move forward and make it a reality for the people in your area. The 2 agrihoods/agrivillages closest to me are one in Salem, about 40 min. south of me, and in a small town a little farther SE. I keep checking online though to see if new ones will crop up closer to me, public transit is a must for me since driving isn’t an option with my disabilities, and I don’t want to move too far away from my father as he ages as he and I are very close and, quite frankly, depend on each other.
This sounds like a wonderful and idyllic situation, to be honest.