The modern commune brings together childcare and eldercare, women from 58 to 94, business and pleasure
A fascinating Guardian series on living in communes - historic, new, and persisting.
New Ground
”Chipping Barnet, a leafy suburb of north London, is an unlikely location for a feminist utopia. Yet it is here, at the top of the high street, past the Susi Earnshaw theatre school and the Joie de Vie patisserie, that you will find Britain’s first cohousing community exclusively for women over 50. The purpose-built development is entirely managed by the women who set it up as an alternative to living alone.
“With residents aged from 58 to 94, New Ground is the UK’s first cohousing community exclusively for older women. Setting it up was an 18-year battle – but with soaring numbers of people living alone, is this an idea whose time has come?”
Centraal Wonen Delft
“I meet Konstanze Winter in Delft, a canal-encircled city in the Netherlands best known for its distinctive blue-and-white pottery. We are in the Tanthof quarter, one of the Netherlands’ so-called “cauliflower neighbourhoods” beloved of 1970s town planners. These were conceived as an antidote to the rigid grid layouts and tower blocks of the era, featuring low-rise architecture and maze-like streets that are said to resemble the cruciferous vegetable when viewed from above.
‘Centraal Wonen Delft, one of the longest-established and most experimental Dutch living projects, blends right in here. A cluster of low-rise blocks decked with strips of bright colour, it could be mistaken for an extension of the neighbouring primary school.
“Winter, 34, contacted me after I wrote about New Ground, a radical women’s cohousing development in London. Its founder mentioned that she was inspired by the collective communities, or centraal wonen (CW), that emerged in the Netherlands in the 1980s. Winter, who lives in one, asked if I would like to visit.”
Belong Chester
”Belong Chester claims to be the first older people’s “care setting” in the UK to include a fully integrated children’s research nursery, where children and residents come together every day. It opened last year in a purpose-built, five-storey complex in Chester city centre constructed of handsome red brick. The ground floor bistro and hairdressers are open to the public, with the care home element contained in six 12-person “households” on the upper floors, along with 23 apartments available for older people to rent or buy.
“It is bright and cheery, the sort of place you’d choose to have your lunch, even if it wasn’t included in your nursery or nursing home fees. Many residents have dementia, but all have the opportunity to interact with the children on a daily basis, studied by academics from nine universities researching the physical and mental health benefits of intergenerational living.
“If the idea is familiar to you, it is probably from the Channel 4 series, Old People’s Home for 4 Year Olds. The show took inspiration from the intergenerational communities that started springing up in Japan in the 1970s, and brought together a group of preschoolers and the St Monica Trust retirement community in Bristol.”
More from the Guardian’s “The Commune” series. Support the Guardian here.
For more, see Ezra Klein’s NYT podcast from 2023, on what communes have to teach the present (recording and transcript)