[vrbelli]

I lived at The Collective. Horrible, horrible place.

The price is ridiculous for a small cage in a crappy industrial area. Facilities are so-so, everything is made to a very low standard. For the same price you can get _so_ much better close to the city centre.

When I lived there the place was infested by young people doing tons of drugs and partying in the common areas. It was well known that several dealers lived in the building but as the staff were also massive cokeheads nothing ever happened.

To fill up the building The Collective housed people on placement through the government. That resulted in some interesting personalities. For example a guy who beat his girlfriend to blood in front of their kid and dragged her out by her hair through the reception.

The general manager was however fired when he, coked off his head, used his masterkey to enter a girls room in the middle of the night to 'talk'.

UBER also had their driver HQ on the ground floor when I was there which resulted in a lot of catcalling and weird behaviour from angry drivers in the reception.

[MistahKoala]

> When I lived there the place was infested by young people doing tons of drugs and partying in the common areas

The impression I get is that these are living arrangements for people who enjoyed shared accommodation at university and would quite like to continue it. Not so much living without loneliness, but continuing and/or maximising their youthful capacity to live as they'd like. I don't necessarily have a problem with that if it doesn't impinge on others, although it feels a bit like they're just paying to shortcut access to a hedonistic theme park rather than making their own way. It might be a stretch to say this, but there's something slightly Westworld about it.

[vrbelli]

For sure. I was initially attracted by the idea of living with creativea/entrepreneurs with a similar mindset.

What I found was mostly late twenties/early thirties "entrepreneurs" and "consultants" that in reality had achieved very little. To make up for their lack of achievement they adopt a holier-than-thou attitude and talk a lot about how they have escaped hamster-wheel society and are now living as nomads and free-spirits, most likely subsidised by mom and dad.

Amusing to observe but annoying to live with.

[nelsonic]

@vrbelli I would love to read your "Top 10 List of Improvements" if you were able to re-build "The Collective" from scratch. I have no connection to "The Collective" I'm just curious how it could be "fixed".

[vrbelli]

Not really sure. I think in many ways it's a pipe dream. Without a shared purpose I think it's impossible to foster a real "community".

[nelsonic]

@vrbelli that's super insightful/useful! A sense of "shared purpose" is really difficult to create and impossible to "impose" (or worse "buy"!) I got the feeling (just from visiting "The Collective") that none of the people who designed/built the place had any intention of living there themselves ... It looked both "glossy" and "sterile" at the same time!

Do you think it would be better if there were fewer people like 50 instead of 500?

What about if existing residents got to "filter" the new "applicants"?

What are your thoughts on having an enforceable "code of conduct" to set the standard for interaction? (like some tech conferences and software projects have...)

[vrbelli]

It's quite an interesting question. I agree it's impossible to impose, maybe even to create.

On university campus and in companies it's a natural occurence. You can have good or bad company culture but there will definitely be a company culture - which seems to be the problem at places like this. There simply isn't a culture.

The size is definitely part of the problem, 500 is way too many. On the other hand I also know people who share house with four other people but have no relation with them.

There was/is a code of conduct and lots of events at The Collective that tries to bond people together. Some people made friends and had their own little group they hung out with but it seemed like most went to a few events and then stopped going.

I might be pessimistic but I think it all comes down to a shared purpose - which you can't enforce unless people work, study or are obsessed with the same religion/politics/whatever.

And yes - it's definitely not designed by people who would eer live there.

[nelsonic]

There's nothing "pessimistic" about thinking that a "shared purpose" is required. (I couldn't agree more!)

There's a reason Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" (clearly define the purpose of your organisation before the product) is the 3rd most popular Ted Talk (of all time ...) https://www.ted.com/playlists/171/the_most_popular_talks_of_...

If the purpose is clearly defined, it should be obvious to everyone without any "marketing" required.

Are you lucky enough to work for an organisation that has a clear purpose? (I ask because v. few people do ...)

[swarnie_]

This sounds shockingly similar to a lot of 1st year student dorm blocks I've been in around the country