In my twenties I tried (a couple of times but not really tried) to live in communes / large houses of more than 12 people
It worked ok ish most of the time but I honestly think it is a significant part of the answer - as cities become more crowded just chucking people together to work it out has many positive benefits - child care sharing is easier at some life stages, meeting others, community activism and so on all seemed to flow naturally.
Along with Barcelona style super-blocks I would recommend communes / high density households as a good option
Housing costs - it's expensive finding that big a location and weirdly there is a sort of flip point (in London) where more people stopped reducing the delta cost per person if that makes sense
moving from "just house mates" to "we need some rules as a community" starts all sorts of "oh I don't know if I really want to think of it this way" - and the sort of people who really want to be in a commune with rules turn out to be the sort of people you would not want to have ... earnest and unemployed (see housing cost)
I think "house mates" is a good level to live at - probably for most life stages to be honest.
And we could easily redefine a village (cluster of cave dwellings / Skara Brae / babylonian houses) to be the same house - it was for many ages for many parts of the world one thing we could call a structure
Makes sense, thanks for elaborating. Agreed on the housemates level- living with roommates I am also good friends with seems to have been my best living arrangement so far.
It worked ok ish most of the time but I honestly think it is a significant part of the answer - as cities become more crowded just chucking people together to work it out has many positive benefits - child care sharing is easier at some life stages, meeting others, community activism and so on all seemed to flow naturally.
Along with Barcelona style super-blocks I would recommend communes / high density households as a good option