this faq was last updated on 2026-02-17.
What is this blog about?
The experiences and perspectives of some folks in the Camberville cooperative housing community. We often get questions from friends and family members about our living arrangements: “What’s it like living with so many roommates?,” “How do chores work?,” “Do y’all have some kind of contract?” While we are often happy to answer these questions verbally, there’s only so much detail you can get into at a noisy house party or the occasional phone call with your parents. This blog is intended to a be a place where we can get into that detail.
Some things that this blog is not:
- About all kinds of co-ops. We are specifically about residential co-ops in the Boston area. This means we aren’t talking about workplace co-ops, like Landry’s Bicycles, or rural co-ops, like the famous Twin Oaks. We aren’t promising that we’ll never talk about such topics, that isn’t the focus of this blog.
- A definitive guide to co-op living. First, see the previous bullet point. Second, even among Boston-area co-ops, there is a pretty significant diversity in motives, structures, and general ways of living. It would be exhausting to try to document them all and would be out of date pretty much as soon as we gotten it written up.
- Co-op evangelization. We are trying to convey how and why we do what we do, not necessarily to convert you. If you read this blog and get excited about joining or forming a co-op, that’s wonderful! If you read this blog and decide that this whole co-op thing sounds terrible, we’re hopeful that we could satisfy your curiosity and glad that you were able to figure that out before joining a co-op.
This blog is very much a work-in-progress. The focus and the scope may change over time. If that happens, we will try to keep this FAQ updated accordingly.
What do you mean by co-op?
For the purposes of this blog, we are particularly interested in urban housing cooperatives in the Boston area. A housing cooperative is a fuzzy term, to be sure, and we don’t think we can give you any precise definition. Instead we will offer a few different factors. The more of these are present, the more likely it is to be a co-op.
- More than the usual number of housemates. Eight housemates living together are more likely to be operating as a co-op than four and four housemates are more likely than just a couple. If you have thirty folks living together collaboratively, you are almost certainly a co-op.
- Non-biological family as part of the household. An extended or multi-generational family living together is typically not considered a co-op, even if there are a bunch of them. That said, a family (romantic partners, children, or both) can be a part of a co-op (this is pretty common). The residents of a co-op may also come to think of themselves as a sort of found family (also pretty common).
- Operating as a single household unit. (If renting) are y’all on a single lease together? Does everyone share common spaces? Do you have a system for making sure chores get done? Do you share groceries? Do you cook meals together? If the answers to these questions are yes, you’re more likely to be a co-op.
- A collective decision-making process. The word co-op fundamentally means cooperation. This generally means that there is a shared governance system, typically tending towards the egalitarian. Regular house meetings, voting or consensus-based decisions, elections for some specialized labor roles, these are all indicative of co-ops. Note that this does not necessarily mean collective ownership of the house. Most co-ops in Camberville are renting from a landlord (property is expensive!) and may move from one property to another every few years as the whims of the rental market dictate.
- Self-description as a co-op. Most co-ops think of themselves as co-ops! They may have a name for their co-op (or even a legal entity). They may be members of the Boston Cooperative Network mailing list.
As we said, this doesn’t really amount to a precise definition. One Cambridge co-op has the motto “a continuing experiment in cooperative living.” This probably describes a lot of co-ops and makes nailing them down more than a little tricky.
For more information on the much broader category of intentional communities, which also includes rural co-ops, ecovillages, religious communities, and much more, we recommend you check out https://www.ic.org/.
What is Camberville?
Local slang referring to the adjacent municipalities of Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, both of which are directly across the Charles River from Boston. The two towns, as well as the Boston are in general, have a long history of experimental living arrangements and other expressions of counterculture. Nowadays both have quite a few housing co-ops and a pretty thriving inter-co-op community. We added “Camberville” to the subtitle of the blog to be more clear about where the primary contributors are to this blog. We don’t intend to exclude potential contributors from other parts of the Boston area (looking at you Jamaica Plain, friend!) or even further afield.
Does this mean that I can contribute an article?
Yes! We invite and encourage contributions from others. If currently live in a co-op or have experience living in co-ops, feel free to pitch us on an idea or send us a fully fleshed out piece. You can find submission instructions here.
Who are the authors?
Depends on the article! We invite contributions from the community and will typically post a brief description of the author at the top of each article to provide context on what perspective they are writing from.
The editor of the blog is Jack Reid, who currently lives in a nine-person, jointly owned co-op in Somerville called the Vivarium. He has been living in one co-op or another (all in Camberville) since 2016. By editor, we mostly mean responsible for formatting the articles and managing the website, rather than any real editing.
How can I get notified when a new article gets posted?
We have some instructions for that here!
Are there any co-op related resources you recommend if I want more information?
- The Foundation for Intentional Community: This group represents all forms of intentional communities (a much broader category than the urban co-ops this blog focuses on). They have tons of written resources and even a directory of intentional communities.
- The Boston Coop Network mailing list: This email list is where Boston-area co-ops post about events and openings. It is also where folks interested in joining a co-op can post about who they are and what they are looking for.
- This Camberville housing Signal group chat: While not strictly for co-ops, plenty of Camberville c-ops are on this group.
Did we fail to answer some question of ours?
If so, please contact us at info@conviviality-cooperatives.com and we’ll be happy to answer. And if you’re question does indeed turn out to be a frequently asked one, we’ll add it to this page.