And what's your feeling on the "income thing?"
My feelings are, it's irrelevant - Everyone who lives there needs to contribute at least a certain amount. "at least a certain amount" will probably be a flat monetary amount, though for renters this amount may be reduced by explicit agreement in exchange for a certain amount of work on various things that need to be worked on, and shareholders will mostly be exempt from this - they will be expected to do quite a bit around the place as well as being responsible for their share, though. As Vector said, we would all be equals - we might not all do the same thing, but we would all be expected to contribute an equal amount.
Let me lay out my proposed organizational structure a bit more, if anyone's interested:
Share-holders - People who have bought into ownership over the plot. Your only financial commitments are paying your share of taxes and utilities, but beyond that there is only what you owe on your share, if anything. I'm not sure how the specifics of loans work, but I know most people probably won't be able to buy a full share up front - they'll probably need to take out some sort of loan.
Renters - Renters commit to a certain number of months or a year, with monthly payments (in advance), and it works much like a basic tenant/landlord situation. In exchange for certain amounts of labour, the share-holders may wave a portion of the months rent (or even all of it). Hopefully, this will bring in enough money to support our various costs. If there's extra, after a certain amount is set aside for emergencies, it will likely be distributed to the shareholders to pay off their various loans or whatever. Realistically, there probably won't ever be enough extra for that to happen.
On Location:
I do sort of have my heart set on Washington, but Canada is okay as well.
Pros of Ontario : I can drive there in under a day right now, meaning I can personally check out property and look at stuff.
Cons of Ontario : My parents can drive there in under a day.
Like my current climate, but colder, meaning we'd probably want one building rather than several. You do NOT want to have to go outside to get to the kitchen in the winter.
I think we should try for a place that is Urban or Semi-Urban - most of us seem to have something approaching professional or university ambitions, which is hard to do without businesses or Universities nearby. So the suggestions about super-rural areas or middle-of-nowhere military bunkers probably aren't great ideas.
As far as growing our own food:
Chickens are a big yes, if possible.
Garden to supplement, also big yes.
Farm, no. Farm's are hard. Farm's are expensive. If we ever have enough money to start a farm, maybe, but that probably won't happen.
Again, flexibility and variety will be important so we can have both homes for families and permanent residents, guests and visitors, and college students either in class or out.
Though for the most part, we will REALLY want to limit guests, we can accept them when we have extra rooms. I think we can assume that either they or the person they are the guests of will be responsible for the associated costs. (Something we'd want to think about)