Abundance of the commons
2026-02-27T16:58:46.000Z
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The tragedy is what you're missing Forwarded this email.
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The tragedy is what you're missing Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more [Gillian here] Last week the New York Times published an op-ed I wrote about parenting with friends and it's the third most shared post on the Opinion page's Instagram in the last week - if it resonates with you please share the post and maybe we can reach a few more people? :) Abundance of the commons The tragedy is what you're missing Gillian Morris Feb 27 READ IN APP When people hear that I've lived in houses with 5-16 people for the last decade, the first questions they ask almost always revolve around what they think will go wrong. How do we deal with people leaving dishes in the sink? What happens when people disagree about things? Do we have to have *endless* meetings? These are valid questions, and we've written about them ( cleanliness , disagreements , meetings ). But I marvel at how many people are missing all the amazing things that come from living with friends and focusing on just the downsides. Pop culture pushes us to expect ‘tragedy of the commons' - that if people have free access to a valuable resource, it will end up getting over used and destroyed. My experience couldn't be more different. I feel lucky to live a life I can only describe as abundant - and I owe it to the commons. A few examples of ways that living with other people makes life better: 1. Abundant, easy, fresh food. Most communal houses I know have recurring orders for staples, subscription to a CSA, and/or someone going on a CostCo trip periodically. Because we buy in bulk, I spend a fraction of what I would on my own. Because we encourage people to cook in large batches, ingredients get used when they're fresh and there are leftovers to enjoy the next day. When I shop, it's because I want to enjoy browsing the farmer's market or need a specialty ingredient. As one of the residents of Agape wrote in our recent case study , ‘It's like every time we cook we're just walking into a grocery store. There's an infinite amount of ingredients to choose from.' The epically stocked kitchen at Youtopia! in Brooklyn 2. More high quality things. So much of what most people own is barely used. Cars are parked 95% of the time. I vacuum about 3 minutes a week. I wish I practiced piano every day, but it's more like an hour a week. Living on my own I wouldn't afford the space for a piano or be able to justify the cost of a nice vacuum cleaner, much less a car. But because I live with others I get to have all of these things. We own not only a piano but a bunch of other instruments, which means I enjoy friends playing spontaneous jam sessions while I cook. We have one of those fancy robot vacuum cleaners that would have been an indulgence if living on my own but a smart investment for a group house. Probably more guitars and one more mannequin than I'd have on my own (at Agape in San Francisco) But the cars are a real game changer. Nerdwallet estimates that owning a car in the U.S. costs $11,577 per year. Since I've never felt the need to own my own car, I've saved at least a quarter million dollars over my adult life. For a couple years Casa Chironja shared a van named Eleanor, and split the costs according to usage. Other times I've friend-rented my roommate's cars, reducing their monthly cost and saving the hassle of renting a car commercially. Not everyone will be able to go without a car, but most households can get away with a lot fewer than one car per person. 3. Never move alone. How many people stay in apartments or neighborhoods they don't love because of the cost and hassle of moving? In the last fifteen years I've never had to fully furnish a room or put anything into storage. Sometimes I've moved into a furnished room, so it was just a matter of unpacking my clothes. When I've moved into an empty house, it's always been a communal project to furnish the place: we have a ‘barn raising' party where friends bring extra lamps, desks, pots and pans, etc they don't use; everyone brings a little bit of their own stuff and we split the cost of the rest. When I've moved out, I've left most of the furniture behind for the next person. Barn raising at Bebop, my house in Brooklyn 4. Division of labor. In my house growing up, I was taught that ‘he or she who cooks doesn't clean.' In practice this meant my mom always cooked, and my dad always cleaned. But the amount of effort to cook for a single family isn't that different from cooking for twenty people, and so we have plenty of nights where no one has to do either. At Feÿtopia , a ~40 person castle-turned-commune in France, you are expected to help cook or clean for three meals a week, which means the other eighteen meals are just provided. Then there are the kids! There is no childcare benefit greater than living with a built-in group of trusted people to entertain and help watch your children. Phil gets into this in his post on Babies @ Radish and I dove into it in my post on families in community. From baby happy hour to baby coworking, living near friends makes parenting easier for the parents and more fun for the kids. Baby happy hour at Radish in Oakland, CA 5. Borrowing a ‘cup of sugar' but for anything. Here's a list of things people have asked for in our house chat in the last few months, all of which someone has had, saving the need to buy something new: crutches, wigs, a snow shovel, envelopes, a Pioneer DJ mixer, nail polish remover, and (apologies for being so on the nose) a copy of Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson's Abundance . Then there are the clothes. Most community houses I frequent have a shared closet with the loose rule ‘wear whatever you want, return it clean, and don't permanently remove anything without checking first.' People deposit winter coats, hats, sports gear, costumes, and other seldom-worn clothes in the closet. When I feel like switching up my wardrobe, I go to the shared closet and find what I need. The shared closet at the Casbah in Joigny, France. 6. A wide network. There's no shortcut to intimacy like living with someone. By sharing the in-between moments when you're not ‘on', you build trust whether you realize it or not. This trust makes it easy to recommend someone or introduce them to someone I think they'd like. Phil says there are many examples of people helping each other get jobs at Radish. I've seen roommates help each other get funding for their companies - and in at least four cases, a roommate has introduced another one to someone they've gone on to marry. Any time I'm heading to a new city, I ask the communal living network for places to stay or people to meet. People have sent me to stay with their parents or friends, and I've ended up in gorgeous communal spaces like Newspeak , the London College of Political Technology. I get to live like a local: tied in with an extended group of friends, clued into interesting events, and paying rent rather than Airbnb or hotel rates. I would not have found myself at an Open Source BBQ in London without the communal hive mind. 8. Abundance of absurdity . Because there are so many efficiencies to living in a group - because food, chores, childcare, expenses are shared - we end up with a bit of extra time. Sometimes that time gets invested in strange projects that bring people joy. At RGB, Ellen Huet and her roommates turned a room into a museum from the future . At Langton Labs, someone built a giant tesla coil that was hooked up to a midi player, so you could play lightning . At Feÿtopia, we built the Sonic Sphere, a concert hall where you sit suspended in the middle of a sphere and enjoy a 360 sound experience. A later version made it to the Shed in New York City, where more than 30,000 people enjoyed this unique somatic experience. The initial sonic sphere at Feÿtopia above, and the later version at the Shed in NYC below. 9. And finally, an abundance of connection. Humans evolved as social creatures - we truly are happier when we intertwine our lives with others. A study of more than 40,000 people over ten years of the American Time Use Survey data concluded ‘participants consistently rated every common daily activity as more enjoyable when interacting with someone else'. I identify as an introvert, and I love my solo time. But I also appreciate that I can step out of my room and find people I know and love preparing food or discussing what they're going to do this weekend. In the words of Julia Leyrer who lives at Lightning in Brooklyn, ‘Getting our social needs met with little effort gives us with a more solid foundation for happiness and belonging, and allows us more room to apply effort to other endeavors.' Finally, contributing to a shared goal - as simple as keeping a common kitchen clean, or as big as helping friends raise their children - builds a sense of meaning and purpose that many of us are seeking. Living without my friends would be the true tragedy. The ‘tragedy of the commons' is held up as a cautionary tale about human nature - proof that we're fundamentally too selfish to share well. But the real tragedy might be the opposite: that so many of us have accepted a model of isolated, individual living that costs more, gives us less, and leaves us lonelier than we need to be. The abundant life isn't reserved for the wealthy or the lucky. It's hiding in plain sight, waiting to be unlocked the moment we decide to stop going it alone. 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