Diana’s book is address to founders, and assumes that someone will be ‘in charge’ of the community. And while the book carefully lays out the principles of consensus governance, it warns that such governance isn’t right for every community, and unless done properly ‘structural conflict’ can be the community’s undoing.

Here’s the process outlined in the book, in a nutshell:

1. The qualities needed to found, and belong to, an Intentional Community
2. Creating the community Vision
3. Setting up decision-making and governance processes, fundamental operating principles, preliminary timeline, membership criteria, and documented log of critical decisions made
4. Selecting members and determining what each member must equitably contribute and commit to
5. Conflict resolution and effective communication
6. Legal forms of organization
7. Deciding on land needs, researching, form of holding, registering, creatively financing it, and dealing with neighbours and zoning (in many areas, multi-family buildings are prohibited by zoning laws designed to keep density low, but can have the effect of torpedoing Intentional Community building plans)
8. Site planning
9. Making the community sustainable

One interesting exercise in the book has each member identify “things, situations and systems that must be or must not be present” in order for them to go forward as a member of the community — a brilliant and innovative process to level-set and clarify expectations. Another exercise has each member use red dots on a large easel to define minimum acceptable and ideal standards and values for the community on matters as diverse as what foods will be raised and eaten, the use of automobiles in the community, and moral and aesthetic standards. The exercise quickly shows where there is, and is not, consensus, and which members are going to be uncomfortable with the group’s consensus.

There’s an interesting discussion on privacy. It turns out most people’s initial concerns about not having enough privacy in an Intentional Community is unwarranted. “It’s much easier to get solitude in the midst of community than to get community in the midst of solitude”, notes Tom Moench, a member of one community. When people opt out, it’s more likely to be over personality incompatibilities, unmet or changed expectations, or financial, power or principle disputes — the same problems that cause many marriages to fail.

Just as in marriage, however, moral issues, differences and lifestyles are a big issue. In the 1960s, a lot of communes collapsed because of differences over monogomy vs. polyamory philosophy, over the acceptability of nudity and public displays of affection (especially in front of children), and over ‘it takes a village to raise a child’ issues of responsibility for others in the community. The book presupposes the continued existence of monogamous relationships and personal property, and there are many Intentional Communities for which these are critical, contentious issues.

But on the whole this is a thorough, brave and valuable handbook for creating Intentional Communities.