Re: Cohousing-L digest, Vol 1 #563 - 7 msgs
From: cscheuer (cscheuerumich.edu)
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 11:19:25 -0600 (MDT)
> If people do not have the time or the
> commitment to the process, consensus won't work and majority voting is
> probably the only other option. Consensus requires a group of people who
> share goals and have a personal commitment to each other. This is
> fundamental to me as a part of cohousing.

The implication here is that consensus=sharing goals and having a personal
commitment to each other=cohousing thus cohousing=consensus.  

It is my understanding and hope that cohousing is not a fixed form. Just as
diversity of membership is desirable in a cohousing community, I believe
that diversity of cohousing form is desirable. Cohousing is still an
experiment and playing with formats is probably critical to the evolution
of cohousing.  I believe that the only fundamental feature of cohousing is
a desire on the part of members for greater community.  Community has
existed for as long as living beings have, generally without any formal
decision making process guiding it.  Obviously not all of those have been
positive, but many have.  So its not the process that makes the community,
but the people.  Any format can work if it works for the people involved.  

I currently live in university family housing, physically very similar to a
cohousing community (minus the common house) but without any intentional
social activities, or self-management.  Its amazing how much of the
cohousing experience we share -  the increased feelings of safety, shared
childcare, equipment and knowledge sharing, the juggle of increased social
interactions with a certain loss of privacy.  I met a woman yesterday who
moved in from a nearby condo complex and she was visibly shocked when I
introduced myself, and her friend, said "see your neighbors talk to you
here." While there is much here that is missing from a cohousing community,
it still achieves many of the same effects (for those people who desire
such impacts).  Many people here would never consider something so
"radical" as cohousing, but they like all the benefits and recognize the
difference in community feeling from other contemporary settings.  I feel
that we do have a community, with a strong attachment to it.  Living here
has influenced my awareness of our mutual interdependance. We compromise
and negotiate over issues, not on the scale of a cohousing community,
because we are all meager tenants of the university, but smaller individual
issues.  But we have no formal process for anything, we all just live here.
No commitments to each other, no collective shared values. As I said this
is not cohousing, but it does make me think about what it does take to make
a community and the degrees or flavors of cohousing that are possible. 

Regards,

Chris Scheuer
Master of Science in Architecture

Research Assistant 
Center for Sustainable Systems
School of Natural Resources and Environment
University of Michigan
www.css.snre [at] umich.edu
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