14 Comments
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Cormac's avatar

Very funny timing on this post. Our house is going great! But despite all my NYC maximalism I'm grappling with leaving https://abyrdintakeoff.substack.com/p/moving

Priya's avatar

interesting, will read now

Chris Lakin's avatar

Thanks for writing this up, sending to gf

Joce Orante's avatar

the show, don’t tell + fomo combo applies to so many schemes! taking notes 😌

Jina Zhao's avatar

One of the best life boosting things you can do IMO

Kejal's avatar

Yesss - we have 3 couple friends who live 10 min drive from us in London and it is GAME changing. Took a hard campaign but so worth it

Nick Zervoudis's avatar

I’ve been thinking about this so much for the past week, and just as I opened Substack today bam, this article is at the top of my feed! Love this Priya, thank you 🤩

When can we get a part 3 with tips on getting friends to move cities/countries? 😆

Priya's avatar

We actually have had a bunch of friends move cities and several move countries. I don't think the process is fundamentally different, those people just come later because they need to trust that it's worth such a big change. That's also why I recommend just getting started and not worrying about getting your closest friends first. Create social gravity and the rest follows

Nick Zervoudis's avatar

Love that, it makes so much sense.

I saw you ran an accelerator last year - how did that go? I was thinking it would be great to have an index of different fractals around the world because in a way if it's a semi-porous community, that means there'll be people that don't necessarily want to do all of this themselves but that they would love to join a fractal that has laid those initial foundations.

Priya's avatar

It went great! About a dozen campuses were started including Fractal Geneva (https://fractalgva.ch/) and Fractal Boston (https://fractal.boston/)

You can find the full list of new neighborhoods at our website https://fractalnyc.com/

Phil Levin's avatar

great piece @priya

dj microbeads's avatar

excellent article... i'm recalling when i tried to start a group house in london with friends from an existing social group, there were four (five?) of us and it was impossible to find a place that fit all our requirements. yes the housing market was bad, but we were also just different people with different needs!! i would do it quite differently now

Janita Chalam's avatar

this paragraph is repeated: "Your friends have different commutes, budgets, priorities, and aesthetic tastes. They may have significant others with constraints too. Do not aim for consensus among your friend group or you will never form a neighborhood."

It drove the point home

Kitbashing Abraxas's avatar

Seeking revealed preferences and finding one co-conspirator should come in handy for friends, thanks! How has advice like this helped you beyond living near your friends?