A walton thanks for starting this discussion and thanks to everybody who responded with such great information. I have spent a lot of my 60+ years life living in and around many intentional communities, including earth haven, gold light ranch, the peace farm and several others. I started the concept for an intentional community in Costa Rica and then moved it to Southern Chile and then back to the US. I called it H.E.A.L. (Heal Earth and Life). my listing on IC.org started in 2005
http://www.ic.org/directory/heal/ and still exist today. I have had hundreds of good souls ask to join me and I told them I would let them know when I found what I was looking for. I have moved the concept of this community with me as I have traveled through out the years. Several times I found properties i thought would be good for it none of them I could personally purchases. Land ownership is for sure the biggest hurdle of most intentional communities, whos name is on the title? Every community I have lived in has handled this differently and in all of them I have not been able to find a perfect way to handle this. What happened in Earth Haven is a good example of what can go wrong and what can go right. The strongest intentional community that took hold there is the hundreds of very cool souls who visited earthhaven and decided it was not right for them but bought land as close as they could get. I lived for a year on farm i leased at the entrance to this community and loved being able to join them from a distance. Gold light is a benevolent dictatorship as mentioned above however as go's the dictator goes the community sometime good sometimes not.
One of the most important things I have found needs to be at the base of any good intentional community is a strong and vibrant cash crop. When the community has to leave it's home base everyday to gather money the community suffers. The mixing of community cash crop with the outside world cash do not seem to mix well, a little like OIL and organic clear water. Once everybody has the ability to live as in pursuing their passions and this covers all other needs, something amazing happens, people in the community walk around with big grins on their faces. The Out Side world thinks their all on drugs and they are a drug called living your life to your fullest potential. I have had this experience a few times and it is magic you dont want to leave the community all you want to do is add to it and support it.
I believe we are on the cusp of many of theses amazing communities coming to this planet and I look forward to H.E.A.L. being one of them. My friends at
http://www.onecommunityglobal.org/ are about to start another one and their open source concept for building community will become a model of what is possible when the rubber leaves the road.
I hope everybody here finds what they are looking for because in that we will all be fine, remember we are the ones we have been waiting for and it's our time. My time will include an intentional community that believe no one should have to pay for good healthy, organic food, shelter or energy. Cant wait to see the smiles on everybody's faces when that happens.
Ziggy