Many efforts to create a Walden Two in real life are detailed in Hilke Kuhlmann's Living Walden Two[17] and in Daniel W. Bjork's B.F. Skinner.[18]
Some of these efforts include:
- 1953: In Lincoln, Massachusetts, a group of families from the MIT community, led by Ranulf (Rany) Gras and his wife Ann and inspired by Skinner's book, formed a corporation and built 23 homes on a 40-acre (16 ha) lot in what became known as the Brown's Wood neighborhood.[19]
- 1955: In New Haven, Connecticut, a group led by Arthur Gladstone tried to start a community.
- 1966: The Waldenwoods conference was held in Hartland, Michigan, comprising 83 adults and 4 children, coordinated through the Breiland list (a list of interested people who wrote to Skinner and were referred to Jim Breiland).
- 1966: Matthew Israel formed the Association for Social Design (ASD), to promote a Walden Two,[20] which soon found chapters in Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Washington, D.C.
- 1967: Matthew Israel founded the Morningside House in Arlington, Massachusetts.[21] When it failed, he tried a second time.[22] Israel later went on to found the Judge Rotenberg Center, which has been condemned by the United Nations for the torture of children with disabilities.[23]
- 1967: The Twin Oaks Community was started in Louisa County, Virginia.
- 1969: Keith Miller in Lawrence, Kansas, founded a 'Walden house'[24] student collective that became the Sunflower House 11.
- 1970: Walden 7, a 1,000-inhabitant community west of Barcelona (Spain), was created as a social and architectural experiment based on Walden Two, living in a building designed by Catalan architect Ricardo Bofill.
- 1971: Roger Ulrich started "an experimental community named Lake Village in Kalamazoo, Michigan."[25][26]
- 1971: Los Horcones was started in Hermosillo, Mexico.
- 1971: Mary Louise Strum and David Nord started an experimental Jewish faith-based commune named "Jubilee Community" in Westphalia, Texas, based on Skinner's Walden Two utopian ideals.
- 1972: Sunflower House 11 was (re)born in Lawrence, Kansas, from the previous experiment.
- 1973: East Wind was started in south-central Missouri.[27]
Twin Oaks is detailed in Kat Kinkade's book, A Walden Two experiment: The first five years of Twin Oaks Community.[28] Originally started as a Walden Two community, it has since rejected its Walden Two position, however it still uses its modified Planner-Manager system as well as a system of labor credits based on the book.
Los Horcones does not use the Planner-Manager governance system described in Walden Two. They refer to their governance system as a "personocracy".[29] This system has been "developed through ongoing experimentation".[30] In contrast to Twin Oaks, Los Horcones "has remained strongly committed to an experimental science of human behavior and has described itself as the only true Walden Two community in existence."[31] In 1989, B. F. Skinner said that Los Horcones "comes closest to the idea of the 'engineered utopia' that he put forth in Walden Two".[32]
