Word On the Street: An Experiment in Neighborliness in Brooklyn

I came across this article on Brooklyn Cohousing on the NY Times site this morning. Brooklyn Cohousing is essentially a real estate development in Brooklyn designed for 40 or so households who aspire to "village" life and all its neighborly benefits within an apartment complex. Each family has their own private apartment, but they know all their neighbors, can cook and eat meals in a shared dining room, vote on decisions that affect the community, hold art classes and other communal activities and watch after each others children. It's not as strict as a commune and sounds like a nice attempt to establish a sense of connectedness in the city. Only time will tell if this works in practice--it's not set to open until Spring 2010--but I, for one, think it sounds practically utopian.