A successful collaborative micro-community, such as a cohousing community, offers an intermediate scale between the single family and the town or municipality, thereby expanding the palette of technologies that can be applied. An annual-cycle solar thermal heating system requires clustering and large thermal storage. Such a system can only be done economically at this scale as Swedish prototypes have so far demonstrated. Large, fast burning combustion and gasifying devices are cleaner and more efficient than their smaller wood-burning cousins. Transportation efficiency - Residents of cohousing communities or of neighborhoods with close social cohesion tend to use their carsless.
Less time is required for driving children around in search of playmates.
Carpooling, and even car sharing, is a reasonable prospect between households that have close ties. When the community supports opportunities to work at home or offers a telecommuting center, fewer people have to drive to work. Food production - The close clustering of building in support of shared common facilities creates potential for retaining larger chunks of arable land. There is a natural marriage awaiting community-supported agriculture and clustered residential communities. Farmers with a secure, long-term tenure over the land can confidently invest the years needed to build up the soil.