Why woudl anyone join a cohousing group?
From: Bob's Cohousing Mailbox (cohowings.network.com)
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 12:45:26 -0500
I've been lurking on this list a while, and a number of questions have 
come to mind which possibly the list can answer.

A)  Why would anyone join a cohousing group?

Having twice visited our local (Monterey) cohousing group, and having 
lurked here for over 18 months while our family contemplated its 
future, I am left wondering why anyone would join a cohousing group.
The basic idea, of ecological and socioeconomic benefits to be 
garnered by joining a cohousing community, quickly becomes 
overshadowed by the reality of the situation.

Cohousing groups seem to work their asses off for years in order to 
get started, only to live in properties that are (as far as I can 
tell) overpriced, smaller than similar stand-alone properties of the 
same value.  In addition to more expensive interior square-footage, 
the land where one can live is also usually restricted, whether it's a 
community courtyard or open acreage to one side of the housing.  Of 
course, Monterey could be an exception, but the photos I've seen of 
other properties seem to bear this out:  Monterey is hemmed in by a 
busy street on the south, a precipitous hill (almost a cliff) on the 
north, and rental apartments all around:  not the kind of place I want 
my 18-month-old tottering about.

This is not to slam Monterey, but to illustrate the concerns which our 
serious co-housing search generated.

Additionally there's the aspect of the work involved:  not only is 
setting up such a venture incredibly daunting, but the ongoing 
maintenance seems rather intense as well:  meetings and maintenance 
parties seem to be the rule.  I am not against these things per se, 
but it seems that the end result of cohousing is 1) more work and less 
time, 2) more expense for the privilege, 3) less space to live in.

Also there was a concern of faith -- what if this all failed?  What 
if, whatever group we joined, it just collapsed for some reason?  It 
was hard to imagine where we'd be in that case:  homeless, with our 
money tied up in some collapsed cooperative?

Finally, an aspect aside from everything else is the need to integrate 
into a tightly-woven community.  In the case of Monterey everyone 
seemed very nice and all, but there was a clear sense that this was a 
team.  Now that's not BAD, mind you, in fact it's great -- but there 
was a concern on our part that coming in after all the hardest work 
was done would leave us as "outsiders" among a core-group which had 
been justifiably forged by the experience of setting up the place.

Those were some of our concerns generated by studying cohousing in 
general, and our only local site in particular.

B)  Why would anyone reading this mailing list want to join cohousing?

Recent flame-fests as well as frequent posts about the work involved 
seem very discouraging to the casual reader like myself.  Questions 
regarding "how to solve disputes," mediation, filtering out 
potential members, and the whole awful "diversity" thread are not very 
encouraging.

When we initially looked at cohousing I was very very enthusiastic, 
and my wife was skeptical but interested.  My picture of cohousing was 
that it would be a little more expensive in the short run, cheaper in 
the long run due to efficiency and economy-of-scale, involve LESS 
maintenance because of shared labor (i.e. mow EVERYBODY'S lawn once 
every two months, rather than mowing my own lawn every week), have 
greater community, living space, and interactive potential due to 
shared facilities, and have more facilities due to pooled resources 
(i.e. the savings on lawnmowers and snowblowers alone would enable the 
group to purchase photographic or computer or whatever kind of 
equipments), and more free time to enjoy the community, resources and 
family.

Instead I am left with the perception that cohousing involves more 
labor; more interpersonal conflicts which place more on the line and 
take more work to resolve than simply being irritated by one's 
neighbors; is more expensive and requires more labor; yields less 
free time and less quality-of-life due to endless meetings and 
maintenance; places the family at significan financial risk; is hard 
to get into and out of; and yields what benefits?

Please feel free to correct my misperceptions:  I am not trying to 
"dis" cohousing, but I am expressing the perception that long study 
has yielded for me and my family.  Maybe cohousing is just "not for 
us":  maybe I'm seeing it colored in some manner (goodness knows the 
Internet does not encourage complete clarity).

--
Bob Alberti's Cohousing Mailbox                coho [at] wings.network.com
Network Systems Corp.                         bob.alberti [at] network.com
"My views do not represent those of my employer, although nobody here
thinks it at all unusual to  cohabitate a common workplace,  organize
meetings, share resources,  and have both private and public spaces."

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