Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: Lyle Scheer (wonkomonkeyhouse.org) | |
Date: Tue, 5 May 2009 07:59:00 -0700 (PDT) |
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Sharon Villines wrote: > > On May 4, 2009, at 4:33 PM, Raines Cohen wrote: > >> * I know my neighbors > > I find that people react to this one with shock and surprise: "You > know all your neighbors?!?!!!!!" That reaction could take three floors > even if it has high ceilings; five with a fast elevator. > > If they are onsite, they look out at the building, seeing the number > of windows and balconies that go with 43 units, and look amazed. > > Then I say I know their children's names, where they lived before they > moved here, how they get to work, whether they are vegetarians or not > (though I forget this often), pretty much where they work (or not), > and where they went on vacation. I also have emergency information for > many in case something goes wrong. > > Then they tell me they don't know their neighbors at all. Most they > never even see walking down the hall or to their cars in the driveway. > They can tell me how many they wave to or greet at the elevator -- > rarely more than from 2-3 houses or 4-5 apartments. > > If they have lived in a stable neighborhood where there are lots of > kids, there is more interaction and they will know the people with > kids the ages of their own. Since kids no longer go to neighborhood > schools in many places, even this is less common. My mom and stepdad are a good counterexample of this. They live in a small lakeside community built as vacation homes in the 1930's in NJ... none of the roads are thru-roads, common community infrastructure including a clubhouse. Lots of families with kids, many second generation kids-now-adults have moved back and are raising their own kids there. Not co-housing.... just a strong community. I found it amusing when my step-dad asked me how the co-housing communities handled those who moved in and didn't join the community for anything (what I'll call here the non-participation discussion), based on the experience of some people who have moved into their community. He knew from his non-cohousing experience one of the problems encountered in co-housing. To me, it just reinforces the fact that a lot of what co-housing is doing is not unique, just encouraging more of it. I think partially because this is where I've come from, that I sometimes read into various discussions on the list a sort of elitism... "look at us and the unique thing we're doing." Personally, I think it's good to be humble and to remember that "the way it's done in co-housing" is neither a fixed thing nor was it invented here first, as it were. I think the only real difference between co-housing and the community I grew up in is a form of self-awareness and grouping of certain features into this identity called "co-housing", and tieing this back to the original discussion, marketing this to anyone who asks. - - Lyle -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkoAU/gACgkQ00lQLawESXqnXACeMUi/7GbCBo54zRNh+7RhjZpE xLYAn3RilZ8cvnpclans1wtQTys277U0 =ibQu -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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YOUR BEST ELEVATOR SPEECH OF COHOUSING Linda Gluck, May 4 2009
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Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing Raines Cohen, May 4 2009
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Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing Sharon Villines, May 5 2009
- Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing Lyle Scheer, May 5 2009
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Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing Sharon Villines, May 5 2009
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Re: Your best elevator speech of cohousing Raines Cohen, May 4 2009
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