Community has been part of the human experience in some form since before recorded history. Our concept of community has developed over millennia and is still evolving today. Many problems we face within communities now resemble those of the early days of society, some would even argue that we have not formed or operated our communities in a way that prioritizes meaningful decisions and forward thinking. This very thought crossed the mind of Pythagoras in 525 BCE when he attempted to create a perfect community named Homakoeion. Today Homakoeion is considered the first intentional community. 

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Intentional community and intentional living are broad terms for communities of people who share land and work together toward shared goals and beliefs. At its root, this way of life places more emphasis on the impact of life decisions, and how community members can work together to create some form of net positivity. Members of intentional communities strive to create a better society with enhanced cooperation.

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in the 1970’s, 2,600 years after Pythagoras founded Homakoeion, thousands of intentional communities were being built all over the United States. The counterculture movement of the 60’s, dissatisfaction with governing systems, and a general shift toward social change created a wide-spread urge to re-commune with people who shared similar goals to form better societies. At the peak there were an estimated 6,000 self-described intentional communities across the globe, with nearly half in the United States alone. Today there are just 1,122 communities registered with IC.org, the largest online intentional living resource.

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In Southeast Ohio a cluster of intentional communities have survived since their dawn in the late 1970’s. Rural spaces accounted for the location of 54 percent of Intentional Communities according to a 1995 “Communities Directory”, published by Fellowship For Intentional Community (FIC). Today 904 of the 1,122 communities registered with FIC are identified as rural or small-town. This trend toward rural space is represented in Southeast Ohio as well; all of the communities in the region are near farmland and away from any large surrounding towns. Though the impact of their proximity to the small progressive bubble of Athens, Ohio and Ohio University is often cited as a factor in the location of the cluster of communities. 

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Sustainability, social change, feminism, art, and spirituality are some of the most popular uniting ideals that these communities form around, though people have countless other motivations for forming and joining intentional communities. These lands all share something in common but their differences are what make them special to the people who live there. Exploring these communities can give tremendous insight to the ways humans can work together to solve problems on a much larger scale.