Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Lot Development Model

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Harry wrote in response to my inflated notions about community and design:

>Briefly, the research completed by Jan Gehl, shows that "Site Design" will
>drastically affect the development of  relationships within a community.  At
>the same time, I would agree with you, that with commitment and considerable
>energy those barriers that are established by a negative "Site Design" can be
>overcome; but, why not reduce the risks (aren't there enough risks under the
>best circumstances?) by eliminating as many barriers as you can. There is a
>notion about how to successfully reach a goal. You simply remove all the
>barriers which will stop a community from reaching the goal; when that's
>done, you're there.

I won't argue for a second that it is good to have a well planned 
social design to make interactions among neighbors easy and effortless. 
 What I will argue about endlessly  is that these interactions do not 
make what I define community to be.  Social interactions are common 
place and often very shallow: "how are you today?" is a common social 
interaction. Unless you have a commitment to the relationship to the 
person you ask "how are you today" you really don't care, and the 
person knows you really don't care and thus they answer " fine, thank 
you."  In community, if I ask someone who I care about "how are you 
today?", I am willing to listen for 45 minutes, empathize, care, offer 
help and assistance if it is asked for, or offer what I can.  Then I go 
away, thinking about the needs of that person, maybe even go and buy 
them flowers to brighten up their day..

That is a huge commitment to a relationship, and that is what I term 
community.  You don't find much "community" happening in cohousing in 
my observation, many people don't want to have that kind of commitment 
to the well being and welfare of their neighbors.  Nor, would most 
cohousers define community as I do, and that's OK too.  Compared to the 
regular housing paradymn, cohousing has lots more connection and caring 
than most developments and neighborhoods. However, compared to many 
intentional communities, the relationships and the commitment to the 
relationships typical in cohousing is much less.

 What is interesting to me is how much dissatisfaction I keep hearing 
from cohousers about the "lack of community" in their developments. 
Maybe the folks that put in this enormous effort to create this 
development had expectations of a closer relationship than they are 
getting.  Somehow, hanging out in the commons and chatting about the 
weather or politics in well designed social gathering spaces is not 
meeting these dissatisfied cohousers desires for community.  I have 
observed a number of communities where people had intense commitments 
to the relationships with their neighbors and yet lived in very poorly 
designed sites, which offered almost no opportunity for casual social 
interaction.  With that experience, I have come to believe that 
"community" is something which develops independent of architecture.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood