We (Phil Levin and Jason Benn) are inviting 35 of our most interesting and charming friends, who share one thing in common: They want to build (or are building) a family in the notoriously family-antagonistic city of San Francisco.
The format is a 2.5 day retreat and unconference, covering a range of topics. But there will be a particular focus on the best way to raise a family in San Francisco and the possibility of creating new coliving villages for parents.
Everyone invited has a baseline curiosity in the idea of living near friends. And that will be a primary topic of conversation.
But we will also just take advantage of the assembled creativity and charm of the attendees to do some other “unconference” type sessions as well.
Some sessions might be on parenting - e.g. How do you coordinate care? What does the research actually say abut parenting styles? How do you deal with screen time? etc
Some sessions might be about our intellectual interests: spicy climate opinions, how a sovereign wealth fund works, etc.
Others sessions be just for the enjoyment: e.g. Tea ceremony, calling old friends you’ve lost touch with, etc.
Even if you don’t end up being part of the future coliving villages, this will still be a great event to attend to build relationships with others who want to be parents around the same time.
A coliving village is a cluster of 2-8 families in adjacent homes with kids of a similar age. The fences would be knocked down and the backyard would be redeveloped into a beautiful private park, hosting space, and safe play area for the kids. Any of the adults could watch all of the kids.
Many of us resonate with the adage “it takes a village”, but to actually coordinate such a place in San Francisco is difficult and requires patience and capital. Fortunately, we (Jason Benn of the Neighborhood and Phil Levin of the Radish coliving village) have experience building both villages and communities, and are developing a strategy to acquire adjacent housing in the Neighborhood in central SF. As Phil wrote about raising his daughter at Radish:
“People talk about the first year of having a kid as extraordinarily challenging. I feel like a bit of a jerk for saying this, but it’s been much easier than advertised for us. And we think our living situation plays a huge role in this.
Of course, it took a lot of upfront work to make this year easy. Building a community is hard. None of this came for free. But the payoff is there.
We’ve had to give up very little in our life to make room for our kid. We still eat dinner with friends every night of the week. We go out on a whim. And our baby girl has a whole clan of admirers.”