Welcome! I’m Jason Benn, and these days I’m mainly known as the founder of the Neighborhood (and now City Campus, and City Campus Real Estate), a one-square mile community of communities in SF that aims to recapture the vibes of a university campus, but for all generations. The Neighborhood is part of a local movement composed of coliving (one big rented house), cohousing (multiple adjacent owned houses), third spaces (community centers), and good vibes (I bump into friends once every 40 minutes around Alamo Square, Lower Haight, NoPa, Duboce, and Hayes Valley).

When I co-founded the Archive coliving house in 2017, I didn’t suspect that it would have such an impact on me. Living around people that inspire me destroyed my limiting beliefs even as we all grew more connected. But I also knew I’d never be able to raise a family in a coliving house. So, after the Archive, I began to experiment. As I stumbled upon little successes and educational failures, my aspirations have grown. I share those lessons here in the hopes that others will also be inspired to live closer to their friends!

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Here are my past updates:

Sep 24 ✅ Season 1 of the Neighborhood is complete! Season 2 will begin with a RE fund.

Apr 24 #12 Launching City Campus. Doubling down on the success of The Commons.

Feb 24 #11: the Village Retreat, Treehouse, and Cohousing. Gathering families.

Jul 23 #10: The Unconference to Community Pipeline. Unconf #2 iterates on the format.

Mar 23 #9: The Neighborhood’s First Unconference. “Scenius” can come from events?

Nov 22 🤯 #8: The Summer of Spaces. Other organizations start planting here, too.

May 22 #7: Launching The Commons. Helping start a third space in Hayes Valley.

Apr 22 #6: Becoming Hyper-Local Real Estate Guy. Folks are starting to move!

Feb 22 🧐 #5: Derisking the Neighborhood and choosing a location. Researching locations.

Nov 21 #4: A glimmer of product-market fit. A neighborhood might be the right format…

Sep 21 #3: Writing about a Web of Questions. What questions could I explore for years?

Aug 21 #2: NYC coliving would look very different than SF. Visiting and learning from NYC.

Jul 21 #1: A new understanding of community. Starting my exploration.