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This capitalist commune is trying to cure L.A.’s loneliness. Plus there’s free coffee
Los Angeles Times ^ | 12/17 | Sam Dean

Posted on 12/20/2020 10:12:59 PM PST by nickcarraway

On a Sunday evening in late September, with wildfire smoke hanging in the air, a few dozen people gathered in the rooftop kitchen of a Hollywood apartment building called Treehouse for their weekly communal dinner.

The building’s co-founder and chief executive, Prophet Walker, stacked plates and cleaned up cutting boards behind the tiled kitchen island, while the building’s designer, Sean Knibb, manned the pans of turmeric chicken sizzling on the stove.

The rest of the residents drank wine and chatted as they waited to eat. A woman with the vibes of an Instagram astrologer waved hi at a man who seemed to leap from a Vineyard Vines catalog. One wall of the kitchen was open to the deck outside, but people were squeezed together at small tables. Nobody was wearing a mask.

It looked like a scene from the past, or from the future. These people weren’t friends, at least not before they moved in. They weren’t family, save a few parents with their children. They were co-livers, a building-sized pod in the time of COVID, in a housing experiment with grand ambitions.

Co-living isn’t a new idea, or even a new target for tech money. Start-ups like Common, Bungalow and WeLive, the co-living division of the smoldering office-space Hindenburg WeWork, have been raising venture capital and carving up apartment buildings across the country in recent years. Most sell rooms to renters as a cheaper option, a nouveau-SRO with foosball in the laundry room and catered Taco Tuesdays on the patio.

Treehouse is taking a different tack. Walker and co-founder Joe Green, a tech entrepreneur in the Facebook orbit and big booster of psychedelic research, say they want to create the togetherness of intentional communities like co-ops, communes, or Burning Man without the anticapitalist politics or freegan cuisine. In

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine; Local News; Weird Stuff
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 12/20/2020 10:12:59 PM PST by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

Sounds like something in Thailand.


2 posted on 12/20/2020 10:52:32 PM PST by Luke21 (Elections you say? We get them next election? )
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To: nickcarraway

Ah yes, the primitive hunter gatherers enjoying their peaceful tribal rooftop life.


3 posted on 12/20/2020 11:06:40 PM PST by baclava
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To: baclava

There’s probably a good number of pigeons to poach up there


4 posted on 12/20/2020 11:22:42 PM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (This is not my current tagline.)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

“Prophet Walker”

Don’t drink the cool-aid !!!!

“Joe Green”.

It’s all about the money and the drug sales !!!


5 posted on 12/20/2020 11:36:06 PM PST by Swiffer_Ralf (Orig. Eureka_Lead)
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To: baclava

Treehouse is just the name of the development. It’s not an actual treehouse.


6 posted on 12/21/2020 12:27:51 AM PST by Flick Lives (#resist)
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To: Flick Lives

Doesnt matter, just like our African ancestors, its when they swing down from the high shelter onto the savanna meanstreets is when the predators will attack our peaceful tribe. I hope for the best for them.


7 posted on 12/21/2020 1:57:10 AM PST by baclava
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