"Milk drips onto a dairy cow's hoof"/"Don Rust, 69, assembles a rope sandal..."/"Austin, 24, blends in with the Ozarks’ autumn leaves"/"Channel Salmons, 30, with her Alembic Hydro cell"/"Maddie sits on top of a woodpile."

Captions under photographs at "The New Generation of Self-Created Utopias/As so-called intentional communities proliferate across the country, a subset of Americans is discovering the value of opting out of contemporary society" (NYT).

Excerpts from the text:

It wasn’t until the decades after World War II, when large numbers of Americans began questioning their nation’s sociopolitical and environmental policies, that the desire to create alternative societies was renewed, leading to the “hippie communes” that would become indelible features of the 20th-century cultural landscape.... Many of these communes... eventually faltered, but they had already achieved a kind of dubious cultural immortality, ultimately becoming the nation’s measure for the alternative living arrangements and utopian enterprises that followed....

Though many residents of intentional communities are undoubtedly frustrated by climate inaction and mounting economic inequality, others are joining primarily to form stronger social bonds..... As Boone Wheeler, a 33-year-old member of East Wind, told me, “There are literal health consequences to loneliness: Your quality of life goes down due to lack of community — you will die sooner.”