Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: General all purpose Cohousing Elevator Pitch

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Jan 11, 2016, at 7:54 AM, Roger Humbke <rogerhumbke [at] hotmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> Cohousing is an opportunity for us to create homes and neighborhoods that 
> care more about each other than we care about money and being consumers. 

One of the difficulties of this task is unintended consequences. A definition 
that becomes an identification of differences — what we are not — also infers 
that non-cohousing is. This definition, no criticism of Roger, can be felt by 
the listener to mean that outside of cohousing there is only caring about money 
and consumerism.

A definition of what cohousing is without reference to what it is not. Thats 
why this is such a hard exercise. 

And having gone through one meeting in which we consented to paying over a 
hundred thousand dollars to replace our roof and install solar panels, and 
another one not holding an inspection company responsible for damage to our 
sprinkler system that they didn’t catch in 15 years of 3-4 times a year 
inspections, I’m thinking money and consumerism are in cohousing as much as any 
place else. We all need to be better consumers and pay careful attention to 
money. Not to "not spending" money but how we spend it.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Sociocracy: A Deeper Democracy
http://www.sociocracy.info