“On Wednesdays I cook, on Tuesdays and Thursdays other families, the menu is posted in the common area.”

K.A., a Greek woman living and working in Denmark, has been living in one of them for the last few years. cooperative housing complex. In fact, this is a small village in which there are private houses, but there are also common areas – the members of the community manage them together. “It was a very conscious choice that we made, taking into account the positive aspects of this particular lifestyle – helping each other and sharing duties and rights, given that we work, and our people live in another country.”

At joint dinners, children communicate, learn to try new tastes and follow certain rules. “During the pandemic and self-isolation, our coexistence with neighbors was beneficial, my children did not feel lonely at all, they had other children in the company.” However, adults are freed by good neighborliness based on pre-established rules.

“If my son is sick and doesn’t go to school, I can leave him at home and know that the neighbors will worry about him, they will come to visit him,” he describes, “and if I wake up and my car won’t start, they will take someone else’s and go work”.

The aforementioned experiences resound in the ears of the inhabitants of urban centers, are unrealistic, and refer us to the way of life of small communities that tend to disappear.