Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Re: Robs Conference Report

[Roger Diggle (diggle]

On 11/12/94 , Rob Sandelin wrote:

> The next generation of cohousers, my children, will not create 
> anything, they will buy existing.  If  the way community is built is 
> you have to go through the building process, then everyone who comes
> in  later, who just buys an existing  home, is not going to be part
> of the  community.

> While I agree that what Roger has said is a benefit to those who do
> the  building, I disagree that it is a requirement, or even a
> necessary part  of being a community.  I have argued this point
> before, that community  is not in the buildings, it is in the people
> and their relationships.   I know of a dozen existing intentional
> communities where their is a  huge feeling of community, and not a
> single one of the residents were  involved in the construction.  IMO
> the expectation for  and history of  community is what is going to
> keep things happening.  If people have  the expectation and desire
> for community, they will do amazing things  not because they have
> to, but because they want to.

I agree with Rob... of course it's possible to build community without
building any buildings.  I have been a part of several intentional
communities myself, and know others who have as well.  But I want a
*cohousing* community, not one of those other communities.  (Well, I'll take
the other ones, too.)  There's no cohousing community here for me to move
into.  Do I want it badly enough to help build it?

> The biggest barrier to cohousing as I see it is that is just takes too 
> much effort and too long to accomplish.  Cohousing? oh yeah, I heard 
> about that - it takes 4 years of meetings to get a house.....No thanks.

This is the problem with early adoption of all kinds of ideas... people drove
expensive, unreliable cars, used computer platforms and software that we now
think laughable.  How easy was it to get financing for the first steamboat? 
The first CAT Scan machine?  

> I think over time we will get a lot smarter about using and growing 
> professionals to do the stuff they should do, and have groups of
> future  residents working on goals, visions, group process and
> bonding.  If  those things are going along on parallel tracks, a
> cohousing project  can be done much faster and easier.

One of the sharpest computer-heads I know was a music composition major who
started exploring computers because he was going to use them to make music. 
His first compositions were done on punch cards.  He ended up sitting on
several panels that helped design early network standards that we still use
in the internet.  He makes his living as a software engineer and project
manager.  In the same way, people from our communities will *become* those
"professionals" because of their love, their enthusiasm, their experience. 
This is not something we need to *make happen* somehow... if cohousing is a
viable idea, it will happen by itself.

In the meantime, I still want my cohousing community, and I can't afford to
(nor am I prepared to) stand back and let the professionals do it for me.  I
just don't see any way that I'm going to escape doing both things - building
and making community - at the same time...

Roger Diggle

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