The strength of the hexagonal plan lies in its disadvantages. Ideally one uses hexagons for small residential neighborhoods where the additional bits and corners are filled with greenery; there, the winding streets discourage speeding, and embrace foot traffic entirely within their surrounds. Long, straight streets provide little insulation from major streets, and make for depressing neighborhood walks.
My favorite plan has hexagons with two small plots of land to a side, creating clusters of twelve-family neighborhoods with a communal garden and playground where children can play together. If neighbors can be enticed to share even more, the plots can be made even smaller at three per side, and the communal area can contain the kitchen, showers, a library, and of course the local rohrpost stop. The focus here is on intimate and efficient neighborhoods rather than straight and efficient streets, encouraging neighbors to interact once in a while rather than living lonely and insular urban lives. If people don't need to go anywhere, who cares if the streets aren't straight?
In the current cultural climate, communal-ish living for families doesn't sound like a pleasant idea. People would just report each other to child protection services for every minor perceived misstep and feel great about themselves for it.
So I just read this article and comment thread to my wife and she said, "Well screw those people; we'll kick them out! This is wonderful idea, let's live there!"
I don't mean to blithely dismiss your objection - obviously the key to making such a thing work hinges on the ability to create a strong shared community. But as you pointed out recently, the Amish have been pretty successful with this. And Asians have actually been living in a style very similar to this for hundreds of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_tulou
The crux of the matter, then, is how to keep everybody getting along. It's not an easy problem to solve. But right away I can guarantee you this: I've never known anyone to turn down a fresh-baked slice of crab apple pie. ;)
The Amish indeed have a strong community, but they don't live communally: Quite to the contrary, they don't have telephones in their houses because conversations going on with outside people could "disturb family life". I think the thing with families is that they develop their own jargons that are not completely comprehensive to outsiders. Within families, people can speak and act in a more informal way than in polite society. In communal settings, that becomes much more difficult.
I don't know Amish who live quite like you describe. The Amish I've met open their homes quite regularly to long-term guests, and their children work together on their businesses, baking goods and selling them at the market. Indeed, the Amish I know blend family, home, work, and church together in a strongly communal way; they've described the extreme closeness of the community as creating personal difficulties when personalities clash and there's no physical or social distance to serve as a buffer.
I can easily understand how that would be. There are some Amish I've met that make me uncomfortable no matter how I'm interacting with them, whether it's listening to them deliver a sermon, speaking with them directly, or just hearing about things they've said to others. It looks to me like Amish manage difficult face-to-face interactions through humility, by sticking to clearly defined tasks and roles, and, well, good old home cooking, even if there's no apples.
Ultimately there's no magic formula, but I've never met an Amishman who could describe himself as an individual living under the dictum of "good fences make good neighbors." That's for modern city folk, not the Amish.
where author Loren Beachy describes some funny things they say to each other in his family: Mother bought a whiteboard and urged all family members to write down where they were to spend their day, and family members started providing philosophical-light answers.
The Amish are all different. This is something they stressed whenever I talked to them and asked questions about Amish practices and beliefs. But somehow, some way... they really do all seem to have the last name "Beachy."
The strength of the hexagonal plan lies in its disadvantages. Ideally one uses hexagons for small residential neighborhoods where the additional bits and corners are filled with greenery; there, the winding streets discourage speeding, and embrace foot traffic entirely within their surrounds. Long, straight streets provide little insulation from major streets, and make for depressing neighborhood walks.
My favorite plan has hexagons with two small plots of land to a side, creating clusters of twelve-family neighborhoods with a communal garden and playground where children can play together. If neighbors can be enticed to share even more, the plots can be made even smaller at three per side, and the communal area can contain the kitchen, showers, a library, and of course the local rohrpost stop. The focus here is on intimate and efficient neighborhoods rather than straight and efficient streets, encouraging neighbors to interact once in a while rather than living lonely and insular urban lives. If people don't need to go anywhere, who cares if the streets aren't straight?
In the current cultural climate, communal-ish living for families doesn't sound like a pleasant idea. People would just report each other to child protection services for every minor perceived misstep and feel great about themselves for it.
So I just read this article and comment thread to my wife and she said, "Well screw those people; we'll kick them out! This is wonderful idea, let's live there!"
I don't mean to blithely dismiss your objection - obviously the key to making such a thing work hinges on the ability to create a strong shared community. But as you pointed out recently, the Amish have been pretty successful with this. And Asians have actually been living in a style very similar to this for hundreds of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_tulou
The crux of the matter, then, is how to keep everybody getting along. It's not an easy problem to solve. But right away I can guarantee you this: I've never known anyone to turn down a fresh-baked slice of crab apple pie. ;)
The Amish indeed have a strong community, but they don't live communally: Quite to the contrary, they don't have telephones in their houses because conversations going on with outside people could "disturb family life". I think the thing with families is that they develop their own jargons that are not completely comprehensive to outsiders. Within families, people can speak and act in a more informal way than in polite society. In communal settings, that becomes much more difficult.
I don't know Amish who live quite like you describe. The Amish I've met open their homes quite regularly to long-term guests, and their children work together on their businesses, baking goods and selling them at the market. Indeed, the Amish I know blend family, home, work, and church together in a strongly communal way; they've described the extreme closeness of the community as creating personal difficulties when personalities clash and there's no physical or social distance to serve as a buffer.
I can easily understand how that would be. There are some Amish I've met that make me uncomfortable no matter how I'm interacting with them, whether it's listening to them deliver a sermon, speaking with them directly, or just hearing about things they've said to others. It looks to me like Amish manage difficult face-to-face interactions through humility, by sticking to clearly defined tasks and roles, and, well, good old home cooking, even if there's no apples.
Ultimately there's no magic formula, but I've never met an Amishman who could describe himself as an individual living under the dictum of "good fences make good neighbors." That's for modern city folk, not the Amish.
I totally believe you. How couldn't I? It is not like I have ever met any Amish people. Maybe I will never meet any either.
So when it comes to communal houses/kitchens, I can only say: Not even the Amish have them, despite being decicively collectivist.
Thinking about it, I have read about one example of within-family jargon among the Amish. There is a book called Chasing the Amish Dream: My Life as a Young Amish Bachelor https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22757667-chasing-the-amish-dream
where author Loren Beachy describes some funny things they say to each other in his family: Mother bought a whiteboard and urged all family members to write down where they were to spend their day, and family members started providing philosophical-light answers.
The Amish are all different. This is something they stressed whenever I talked to them and asked questions about Amish practices and beliefs. But somehow, some way... they really do all seem to have the last name "Beachy."