I was really surprised and pleased to read the post about the Ananda community in Lynnwood. It sounds like such a different place than cohousing, and yet I suspect (hope?) we share a vital link.
As I thought about our link I got a little fuzzy. When I tried to put into words what our link was, I remembered the fundamental problem of NICA. We are trying to build a community of communities, but those communities can be quite different from each other. People naturally like to bind themselves into groups (I would say it is an instinctual need for us), but it helps enormously if there is a clear way to distinguish who is in and who is out. If we were just an association of local cohousing groups or alternatively of just egalitarian coops it would be so much easier. People would naturally recognize their affinity (like the cohousing associations do) and the binding would be quick and tight. NICA does not have that.
And yet I do think we share a vital link. What we share is that we are (whether we are aware of it or not) engaged in an experiment to change the culture. By culture I mean the whole total of our shared beliefs and values. It is like the water that fish swim in -- not something you notice until you are out of it. I first learned about American culture when I moved to Japan to live for four years. In Japan I went through culture shock twice: first, the milder version, when I arrived, and then a much more profound one a year later when I finally understood enough of the language to really get how incredibly different these people were. I was married to a Japanese woman at the time and I came to understand that many of the things I took for granted as obvious truths, were not at all true in Japan.
We underestimate the difficulty of shifting culture at our peril. I suspect that the reason many of the 60's communes ran into such difficulties is because they tried to shift the culture too quickly. So we need all the help that we can get. And the fact that there are lots of different kinds of communities is good. There are lots of cultural elements to work on: spirituality, economics, group process, land use, child rearing, etc. I do not think that any one community has all the answers. We have a lot learn from each other.
And its fun to hear what others are up to!