I think there are plenty of people living in communal housing on some level or another.  In my city I&#x27;ve met several who have shared larger townhouses with several bedrooms and shared living space (the simplest would just be looked at as having several roommates I guess) or large warehouse&#x2F;loft spaces with similar arrangements.<p>I don&#x27;t know of any full apartment buildings like this though.  I guess the main issue is the one that comes up often enough with the smaller groups I&#x27;ve run across:  stability.  The more people you have, the quicker the odds of &quot;turnover&quot; go up with people moving in and out.  Adding to this is the sense of ownership or control that tends to keep people living in any given place.  If you feel like it&#x27;s really your home, then you want to stick around but the more people split &quot;ownership&quot; of common resources, the less each individual feels it&#x27;s their home.<p>I think on some level everyone wants to make their home the way they prefer and I guess the apartment building idea would be good for this.  You have enough individual space to fulfill the desire to have your own setup but you share the parts that make sense to share.<p>I guess my question is where the line is between just good neighbors on a block who share some activities&#x2F;resources and housemates in a big building when defining a potential community or collective.<p>I think there are so many degrees of community that there&#x27;s not really a set point at which it becomes a collective endeavor.  If you go by just living in the same structural building, then there are certainly plenty of examples right now.  All you really need is a building where residents all have some level of agreement on things to be shared and contributed to.<p>The flip side is that the only real way to ensure it happens is to buy the actual building and only rent apartments&#x2F;sell condos to people who agree to the arrangement.  If you don&#x27;t have a replacement for someone who is moving, can you afford the vacancy while you look for one?  If residents own their own condo&#x2F;unit, can you compel them to only sell to someone who would follow the &quot;house rules&quot;?<p>I can see why these things tend to be more along the lines of lucky accidents (neighbors who all choose to contribute to some degree) than more formalized arrangements.