Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing Distribution by Location "type" (was Co-Farming Community)

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Hi All,

Since Diana is so often right, I want to help with more information on
Cohousing distribution. For the 2008 National Cohousing Conference,
Coho/US commissioned Betsy Morris and Raines Cohen to conduct some
research based primarily on data in the Cohousing Directory, along
with other non-published communities. Here's what was self-reported by
the communities:

Urban: 40%
Small Town: 22%
Rural: 21%
Suburban: 17%

The last time this came up on Coho-L, some wanted to nit-pick the
categories - each Community member who entered their directory listing
made the decision about which category to select, there is nobody
controlling or checking up on their entries.

Cohousing community land range in size from just a couple small city
lots to 500 Acres (Zephyr Valley):

http://www.cohousing.org/directory/view/2150

Cohousing is geographically diverse. Like Diana, most of my
experience, has been visiting ones in higher population areas. I look
forward to expanding my horizons by visiting more rural communities in
the future. I was reminded of this diversity when in the Boston area
for a Coho/US Board meeting this past weekend. While in the area, I
visited Mosaic Commons and Camelot Cohousing, who share 68 acres of
truly beautiful land - especially now while there is still some Fall
color. The board meetings themselves were at Cambridge Cohousing.
Here's how each community describes themselves in the directory:

Mosaic Common: "Small Town (very small town, near-rural, but within
the Boston metro area)"
Camelot Cohousing: "Small Town (Berlin is a beautiful, small New England town)"
Cambridge Cohousing: "Urban"

All of these ring true for me and three have homes available for sale.
I expect I'd enjoy life in any of them and urge anyone interested in
New England to check them out.

In community,

Craig Ragland
Executive Director
Cohousing Association of the United States (Coho/US)
425-487-3550
http://www.cohousing.org
craig [at] cohousing.org

Please consider attending the National Cohousing Conference. Click here:
http://www.cohousing.org/conference


On Tue, Oct 27, 2009 at 6:02 AM, Diana Leafe Christian <diana [at] ic.org> 
wrote:
> Cohousing is a very specific kind of
> intentional community, and probably 99% urban or suburban. While I
> assume you've seen the Coho/US website, if not, please see 
> http://www.cohousing.org
>  for a thorough description of what cohousing is and isn't. The only
> rural farming cohousing community I know of is Cobb Hill in Vermont,
> on 260 acres. I assume you've checked them out, but if not, please do.

I expect other people that want to help Diana learn about others may
chime in here.

> Diana Leafe Christian
> http://www.EcovillageNews.org
>
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