Cottage Living Shows the Enduring Attraction of Simplicity

"We talk often here on PlaceShakers about cottage living, as well as drilling down into how to make that happen at home. This weekend, strolling through Victoria Beach — an insightful cottage community in Manitoba, Canada — I was struck by many of the lessons learned through all the conversations we’ve had together here. And one of the biggest is to keep it simple."

"And in many cases, that means inexpensive. Victoria Beach does it with a dirt street grid and very simple architecture on the town square, which is really more of an over-sized town ramble. Most of the lots on these dirt streets are not cleared keeping the costs lower and privacy higher."

Borys goes on to discuss the Rural Municipality of Victoria Beach, a cottage resort community, which restricts cars to a parking lot at the front entrance. She offers up some photographs, and the reminder to keep our urbanism — and ruralism — affordable.