Cooperative Housing Do’s and Don’ts: A Lesson From History

This is a very interesting article on what it takes to build successful cooperative housing. It draws upon historical lessons from what happened to the Fourierist communities in the 1840’s .

The lessons are that:

1) money matters more than people want to believe;

2) rules exist for a reason. Oftentimes people think rules are simply authoritarian inventions that benefit no one. There are important reasons to have rules even in non-authoritarian societies. Finally:

3) flexibility in membership.