Community Living: The Key to Quality of Life?

The Old Hall community is a group of 44 adults and 15 children living cooperatively in Suffolk. One of its founding members lauds the project as a more economically viable and less stressful way of life.

Old Hall is essentially a non-profit housing association and to live there, you must make a monthly payment. However, it is considerably less than required to live 'outside' of the community. Living in Old Hall means contributing to the upkeep of the property and farming of the land, so each adult also does around 15 hour of community work. Many residents also have part time work outside of the community, for example as teachers and doctors. The benefits for individuals living there are reduced costs of living, access to healthy, organic food produced on site, shared childcare, and of course, community.

The BBC reports:

David, who is 74, says he feels sorry for people his age living alone, who don't have a "fantastic social life" like him.

"They're very lonely and that is a terrible thing," he says.

The community describes its ethos as:

A concern for the environment and a desire to live an egalitarian, co-operative and healthy lifestyle. We attempt to farm the land, rear our animals and grow our food as organically as we can. Decision making at all meetings is by consensus.

Whilst we can't (or won't) all want to live in a community, we can live in more community conscious ways and connect more with outside, green spaces. For example, there is abundant evidence that shared green spaces contribute positively to psychological and physical wellbeing.