Sr. Madeliene once told me that the original Catholics were in communes.  Funny how something can be one thing in one hand and another thing in another.  

I hadn't thought about hippies in conjunction with this.  For such efforts to go that way would be a waste, at best.  No, the direction I see this going is Orwell's 1984, with people being the equivalent of zoo animals.  

I personally like the idea of a small, economical house (now that my children are grown and gone), and I positively love the idea of being independent of the oligopolies, HMO's, and all the modern things we are enslaved to.  Be it ever so humble...