I have always dreamt of growing up in a town similar to those from fairytales and stories, something like the shire in Lord of the Rings or a town that exactly resembles that of Stars Hollow from Gilmore Girls. A town where everyone knows each other, where you work together to form a community, with town meetings, copious town events and gatherings, where the town gossip queens convene each morning to chat and there is a town clown (Kirk, of course). These days, everything is either spread out or overly condensed and overpopulated, making it difficult to create that sense of community. What if you could combine an empowering sense of community with a distinct sustainable attitude? There's a growing movement focusing on building and developing new urban neighbourhoods based on co-operative and sustainable living. It's like living in a share house, but on a larger scale and with more space and cooperative thinking. The Guardian recently reported on a family that lives in a co-housing project in Leeds comprised of 35 adults and 10 children. It has been running for 18 months, after 6 years of planning and construction. The project contains 20 individual, private housing units, which surround a communal garden and courtyard, and sharing facilities such as a laundry room, workshop, allotments and bike sheds. There is a common house where the residents meet, cook and eat together twice a week, collect their mail, host local groups, collectively govern their community.... and they hold parties there! Another co-housing project is being developed close to this one, called The Cambridge K1 project, comprising of 40 families and individuals, hoping to get planning permission soon and move into their new homes in the spring of 2016. The modern theory of co-housing originated in Denmark during the 1960's, starting with a group of families who were dissatisfied with existing housing and communities that they felt did not meet their needs. It the became greatly established throughout Scandinavia, Germany and the US. According to The Guardian , Jo Gooding, coordinator of the UK Co-housing Network, describes these projects as “self-managing communities, independently governed by the people who live there”. Gooding says there has been a 100% increase in groups forming in the past two years, and 18 projects have been completed, with “a definite trend towards cities” – including London, Cardiff, Newcastle, as well as Leeds and Cambridge. Local authority interest and involvement has also been picking up. The community in Leeds, named Lilac, is built on the site of a former school. The age of it's members span form early 20s to over 80, and the housing ranges from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom houses. They all share five washing machines, and between them they own 10 cars, however there are dozens of bikes. The Guardian quotes co-founder and resident Paul Chatterton, “ We’ve fundamentally changed the way people relate to their housing, we do not see housing as a commodity on which you speculate. We’re making a stand against casino capitalism in the housing market. We want to be affordable in perpetuity. ” There is something so inhumane about the way majority of the western world's cities and towns are constructed. Where your neighbours are strangers and you're home is isolated, with your own private yard and solo kitchen. It's easy for someone to never make friends around where they live now. According to Gooding, "loneliness is said to be as big a health risk as smoking." But it is even more than that, when it comes to sustainability the sharing community is one of it's strongest components. We need to learn how to share...share gardens, share food, share lives and ideas in order to work together and create a more sustainable future for us all. For many of us who can't live in a co-housing project, probably because there aren't really all that many around, there are shared gardens that you can get involved in, or start yourself. Or even just adopting the sharing mentality, with clothing swaps, group meals, and utilising sharing opportunities such as Tushare , can help the world move closer to achieving the sustainability lifestyle these co-housing operatives maintain.