Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: The $200,000 invisible wall

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

Matt Lawrence <matt [at] technoronin.com>
is the author of the message below but due to a problem it was posted
by the Fred the list manager: owner-cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

On Mon, 18 May 1998, Deb Smyre wrote:

> Doesn't this defeat much of the spirit of co-housing?  Without
> socioeconomic diversity among residents, it's easy to level the criticism
> that co-housing is no more than suburban sprawl.   Does Sharingwood make
> extra efforts at outreach with surrounding communities to help balance this
> insular "middle-classism"?  Otherwise, what's the point when the only
> community-building that takes place is among carbon copy people?

I've thought long and hard about this issue and I haven't come up with any
good answers.  The main problem that I see is that an extremely large
variation in incomes (10x or so) can create a lot of stress because of the
perceived difference in the value of a dollar.

Does anyone here have a good answer?

-- Matt