An SFGate.com article from a couple of months ago, about communal living among techies in San Francisco, caught my eye recently. Have a look.
A quick reaction that is a bit too long for a tweet: I have to say I like the way these techies think about living spaces, and I like the echoes of San Francisco values in the arrangements they are pursuing. But I find it interesting that just about all their reasons for doing this — at least the quoted ones — involve them being better entrepreneurs, more “successful,” and more efficient. Political consciousness doesn’t seem to come into it, especially in any kind of more largely critical way about the economic and social status quo of America. I’m sure they all have perfectly liberal impulses on an issue-by-issue basis, but the political revolutionary impulse is missing. Technology is the ideology.
Which makes them very different from hippies indeed.
Eamon Kircher-Allen 
I’ve heard about these communities. It is a cool thing that’s happening. And I think communal living breeds empathy by itself. But there are also communities of young people who are driven by social consciousness, The Hub (a socially conscious co-working space) being one of them. Being in there feels like you’re in a think tank that’s trying to solve all the world’s problems. It’s very inspiring.
Great points/ observation. I’m definitely interested to see what becomes of the movement.
As a prototype, harkening back 30 years, the idea is excellent: people joining together to achieve what they want rather than trying to do it as individuals. And of course in this time social networks and technology will be at the center. Its hopeful, I think, that this paradigm might be used by groups to work on preserving diversity and affordability in San Francisco.