We are always on the lookout for innovative books which tackle important topics and take us into new territory. Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist and project scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, states: "Until now, there has been no unifying concept or name to tie together the stories that have been written about the ways we currently live." The term she has coined for this is "lifespace literature." Today, people of all ages, have more choices than ever as they ponder a host of living arrangements.
The large number of adult children who have come back to live with their parents has been widely reported, and the numbers keep growing. Another choice is unrelated people living together, such as young adults in urban areas where it costs too much to have your own place. Groups of older people are sharing living spaces in order to avoid moving into nursing homes. These forms of co-housing combine the human need for both camaraderie and solitude.
DePaulo also discusses the New Urbanism, the Village movement, single mothers with children living together, and seniors who have decided to stay committed but live apart. She concludes: "Despite decades of cynicism on all sorts of other matters, family is still sentimentalized. Yet it may be friendship, more so than family, that captures the essence of twenty-first century life."
We agree with this keen insight into the changes taking place in how we live today. We've begun to explore it with our topic on Intentional Communities.
