Belknap’s co-housing residents join 5,000 others across the U.S.

As a kid growing up in the busy beehive of a large apartment complex on the north side of Chicago during the '50s, Joan Lichterman got used to having a lot of people in her life: She and her friends were constantly in and out of one another's homes -- playing games, sharing meals, listening to the radio and watching TV.

And when her youthful imagination conjured up the future, things stacked up pretty much the same.

"As I was growing up," says Lichterman, "I had a fantasy of living cooperatively with all my best friends."

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