An Intentional Community in Uptown

Editor's Note: From the Friendly Towers of Jesus People USA (formerly the Chelsea Hotel) to Keystone Ecological Urban Center, Uptown has seen its share of Intentional Communities. Wikipedia defines an intentional community as "a planned residential community designed to have a much higher degree of teamwork than other communities. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political or spiritual vision and are often part of the alternative society. They also share responsibilities and resources. Intentional communities include cohousing, residential land trusts, ecovillages, communes, kibbutzim, ashrams, moshavs, and housing cooperatives. Typically, new members of an intentional community are selected by the community's existing membership, rather than by real-estate agents or land owners (if the land is not owned by the community). Though intentional communities do not claim to be utopias in the sense of perfect places, many do attempt to live a different and better sort of society, and as such many draw on historical utopian experiments or ideas in utopian fiction."

AP writer Martha Irvine explores this concept with an interview of a woman at Keystone. For complete article and photos, go here, here or here (each version of the article has different pictures).

Living simply provides economic shelter
By MARTHA IRVINE AP National Writer

CHICAGO - Keri Rainsberger isn't rich. She works in the nonprofit world for a relatively low-profit salary. Yet, as many Americans are scrimping for every penny, she hardly feels the pinch. She still tithes 10 percent of her income to her church, even as other members have cut back. She rarely worries about rising gas and food prices. And she never bothers to balance her checkbook, because she doesn't come close to spending what she has. "I live so far below my means that it doesn't really register," says Rainsberger, a 31-year-old Chicagoan with a wiry frame and unusually sunny outlook. "I don't have to think about money." How is this possible?

To find out how, go to: Living Simply