Hey everyone, I'm hoping someone in here might know more than I do about this topic.

My father grew up in a cooperative in suburban (then semi-rural) area of Illinois, called York Center Cooperative, or YCC. At the time it was created it was a necessity in that area for the families who lived there; interracial families weren't accepted into many neighborhoods in that area in the cultural climate at that time. It is one of the oldest (if not the oldest) continuously running intentional communities in the US. The cooperative is currently at risk of being disbanded, which his really sad.

The jist of it as I understand it was that the cooperative owned the entire tract of land and members bought in and would be alloted a plot on which to build a home. The homeowners would own the home, but the land was held by the group at large. At the time it was created, the co-op was in an undesirable rural area, but since then towns have grown up around it, and now the aging original co-op residents are sitting on what has become very valuable land. This is causing problems because there are some new members who bought into the co-op as members and now want to disband it in order to sell their homes and the land at a large profit. The co-op is struggling to afford the time and money for the legal proceedings to bar this move and keep itself alive.

I really don't know all of the details of it, but I can find out a lot more if anyone is interested. I know that a couple of folks who grew up there with my father ended up going to FW for a bit way back when.

I thought i would throw it out there to this community, I don't know, maybe there's a student who would like to go there and write a thesis or journal on it? Or a lawyer or law student who would like to do some pro-bono work in the Chicago suburbs? Or maybe someone here knows of a group or individual who assists intentional communities? I think just having some attention on what's going on over there might help.