i love the idea, i really have never worked in a cooperative group that i felt really worked. i eventually stopped doing that kinda stuff, because it was always just a bunch of people arguing, talking and never actually doing anything. i would much rather just show up and someone says we need this hole dug, here is a shovel, dig it, then sit through 10 meetings of 20 people arguing about the best most way to dig a hole and how to fairly divide up the work of digging holes. just give me the fucking shovel and i will dig them all while you sit around talking about it.
so most of the time i just do projects by myself, just easier, and the shit gets done. I will say that all of my projects, and all the projects i've been apart of always fail for the same reasons.
money / rent. if you buy the land this takes care of rent, you still have to pay property taxes but this is very affordable. all my early projects failed because they eventually grew to a point where they because financially unfeasible, because they didn't generate any money and i couldn't afford to keep them going. the one that lasted the longest and got the biggest was printing, and happened because it generated an income, which made it possible to expand and continue.
the other big problem in anti authoritarian projects is lack of a good way to get past disagreements, and people constantly trying to fight for status and leadership roles (in groups where there are supposed to be no leaders).
there is lots of cheap land. i love the area around flag. i had hoped to find a job and buy land in the area but it just didn't work out. I-17 & I-40 meet there, lots of cheap land around valle & ashfork, zoning laws are not really the greatest, but lots of people in the area seem to be ignoring them.
i was kind of looking at land in pershing county nevada near lovelock. it's cheap, there is lots of work between fernley and reno at an industrial center, winters are doable off the grid, summers aren't too bad. no state income tax. it is off the I-80. not sure about zoning, have not researched that yet. i do know in some counties in nevada there are little to no restrictions.
new
mexico sounds interested, haven't looked into it much, but it is an area on my list of places to go.