meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
Life Kit

Why communal living might change your life

Life Kit

NPR

Health & Fitness, Self-improvement, Kids & Family, Education, Business

4.33.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 July 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

There are options beyond living solo or with roommates — and one of them is called 'communal living.' In this arrangement, people don't just simply live together, but share resources and create community. In this episode, co-living enthusiasts explain how it works and how to decide whether it's right for you. This episode originally published on April 16, 2024.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

If you're feeling overwhelmed, you're not alone. Maybe you want to feel more in control of your

0:05.2

emotions, or you're looking to reclaim your attention. LifeKit has compiled all of our best

0:10.5

advice on managing your feelings and controlling your focus into new easy-to-listen playlists.

0:16.4

Sign up for LifeKit at plus.npr.npr.org slash LifeKit or in the LifeKit channel in Apple Podcasts.

0:24.3

You're listening to LifeKit from NPR.

0:32.0

Hey everybody. It's Mariel. If you needed to borrow a cup of sugar or, I don don't know needed someone to sign for a package for you

0:39.6

or bring your prescription when you're sick do you have those people are you that person for anyone

0:45.0

what about if you wanted to have some spontaneous fun you know the kind that doesn't require a

0:49.6

calendar invite grab a bunch of friends and play frisbee in the park, or order a pizza and watch a movie.

0:55.4

I'm talking about community, a group of people who enjoy each other's company, rely on each other,

1:00.6

and create lives that are intertwined in some way. A lot of people don't have this, but they'd like to.

1:06.9

Last year, the Surgeon General called loneliness and isolation a public health crisis and said we need relationships, so community, to live healthier, more fulfilled, more productive lives.

1:19.9

There are lots of ways to build community. And on today's show, we're going to talk about one of them. It's called co-living. That means living among a group and sharing space with people

1:29.1

beyond your nuclear family, whether that space is an apartment or a house or a building or even a

1:34.8

city block. I think co-living is a real return to a way that we used to live. That's Jillian Morris.

1:42.0

She lives with about 10 people in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Now, if that

1:46.1

just sounds like your classic roommate situation, co-living often goes a bit beyond that. Jillian says

1:51.8

that generally when people are co-living, they're doing it not primarily for convenience or cost

1:56.2

savings, but because they want to live communally and to tie their lives together.

2:06.4

And she says, actually, in the U.S., this concept that we should aspire to live alone or with only our nuclear families, that's pretty new.

2:09.2

Really only in the last hundred years or so in America, this rise of the single family

2:13.8

home, this idea that we should all be siloed into our own apartments, that in fact, if you don't live alone, you're a little weird, that you need to have your own

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.