Cohousing-L Mailing List: Reply to B.Sandelin on coho cost as barrier

['Judith Wisdom (wisdom]

Rob Sandelin wrote:
> 
> Judith Wisdom Wrote about her situation and came to the conclusion that 
> what she needs is cohousing.  I read what she wrote and came to a 
> different conclusion.

Bob,

I  (J.W.)reply first to thank you for your thoughts but to clarify and thus 
try to elicit and 
challenge your reasons for coming to a different conclusion than I did, 
given what I said in my original post and the conclusion I reached .  It 
also raises the issue of larger context and its effect on the ability to 
build community, of which coho is one example.  And to challenge values 
in action in current coho, which exclude people just like the larger 
socieity does, by income.

> 
> Judith, what I hear you saying is what you want is community, but you 
> can't afford cohousing community.  There are hundreds of other 
> communities besides cohousing around, many offering great advantages 
> for low or non-income folks, and many providing much more community and 
> support than cohousing offers.

It is not at ALL clear to me that cohousing provides less community than 
I wish.  For while community is intentional in both setups, the 
ecological/physical community in coho is essential to my desires (and 
apparently 
to  all those who choose coho as their kind of community.  My mobility is a 
bit limited often and, also, although most of my life I was perfectly 
mobile and worked and went to school and did lots of other things, I now 
have to stay at home, working at a new career (as a ghostwriter and 
editor) and writing.  Having activities very nearby and neighbors nearby 
would afford me the opportunity to interact and socialize that I now 
have only with friends who, because they don't live close, I don't see 
often enough.  I would hope and assume in coho the seeing, even the 
casual hello from close people, would happen daily.  Less likely with a 
community of the sort you suggest.   Hence, such 
nonphysically based communities would provide less of what I need, not 
more, than would coho. Physical proximity in addition to spritual and 
shared intentionality of communal spirit is the key.  And the former is 
abset in what you depict as a more reasonable alternative for me.

As for "support," which has so many meanings it almost is meaningless to 
use without defining, what concrete support I net, I get mostly via 
"buying" it.  Some, like delivered food and housecleaning I could 
continue to do.  In fact, in some cohos I would bet people busy working 
and shcooling would love to share  in the cost of hired help.  I also 
know that some people are talking of allowing artists and writers to move 
in at reduced costs and bartering with services, like housecleaning and 
gofering.  

The community you suggest, which sounds lovely in its way, also wouldn't 
solve another of my problems: living in very small urban high rise digs 
when I want to live amongs grass and trees (be more in touch with natural 
surroundings-god that's how I've lived so much of my life and it is 
essential to me, absolutely essential) and see neighbors and talk to 
them when we each want to talk.  But were I to move to such an area 
alone, outside of coho, I would be in pleasanter surroundings but yet more 
isolated.  Again, coho is the answer for that.


> 
> Check out the 1995 Communities Directory at your local bookstore.  
> Beside listing cohousing groups there are so many more options 
> available.  I also suggest the book, Building community anywhere, 
> finding support in a fragmented world. by Shaffer and Annundsen.  

I have the l995 CD, which is where I found out about this list.  Maybe I 
haven't plumbed its depths deep enough, but the only community of the 
sort you described is one in an area not hugely far from where I 
currently live but much too far for me to be a part of.  (They 
have a yearly bash in early September and I am going.  However, everone 
even out there has their own home, not within close distance and they 
tend to see each other maybe once a month, although some try to get 
together once a week.  It's good in terms of promoting 
community, but nowhere near what I want. Besides it's in a molto 
expensive little town (quite beautiful) outside Phila. Again, the essential 
core of 
what addresses my desire is not just people but proximity, everyday 
proximity.

I will get the other book you mention, for it seems relevant to coho and 
non=coho community.  And I'd like to find out more about the group you 
mention.

However, it's interesting to contemplate the relationship of larger 
context to intentional community of all sorts=coho and non-coho.  Some areas 
and cities 
have an ethos that is more or less conducive.  I live in Phila and have 
lived elsewhere and have known people who have lived here and in NY and 
also the west and northwest.  We all agree.  Philadelphia is one of the 
coldest cities re associating and forming association.  As a sociologist 
(albeit not an urban sociologist)I 
feel undone in that I haven't been able to analyse it historically or 
sociologically.  But what I'm saying I'd bet big bucks that the kind of 
community you suggest (which, as I said, I don't think would meet my 
desires and needs as much as coho by a long shot) would be far less 
possible, maybe even impossible to organize in Phila even though it seems to 
have 
taken such good hold in Seattle.  I know people there and have a hunch 
about the ethos and mentality.  I could give example after example of the 
sorts of isolating things and geist that exist here.  It has been true 
for years.  I do have some ideas why , but that's another story.

I also strongly believe that if coho doesn't try to find solutions to 
including more affordable units in each community, or find ways to make 
some units available at reduced cost, they 
will be ghetto=ized and exclusive in the same way so much housing is in 
unintentional noncommunal neighborhoods.  That's a pity.  Especially when 
it excludes people like myself who, but for a financial situation 
secondary to an illness, would be coho types (whatever that is) not to 
mention would especially benefit from coho (the proximity of association).

These are not easy issues but touch on the problem of new forms 
reproducing the problems of the larger society in which they exist, and 
thus excluding people who get excluded from so much already.  I'm not 
saying coho should or could solve all the problems extant in our 
society.  It simply couldn't.  But there are some problems very 
"adjacent" to the problems it seeks to and does solve, that it could 
(dare I even suggest should) reach to solve, which I THINK is the one I 
brought up.

This reply is not a rejection of your thoughts and suggestions.  I 
appreciate them.  But it is a disagreement with your notion that the type 
of community you suggest would be what I want and/or need would be more 
appropriate or better than 
what I currently think (i.e., coho).  Although as I continue to explore 
and learn I might change my mind, but on the face of it my conclusion 
remains unchanged after considering what you laid out.

I'd surely connect with such a virtual community as you suggest, but in 
Phila, given what I said, I would not try to organize one.  I have 
organized many things but that seems too, too formidable.  And I want to 
concentrate on getting new digs as well as community if it's possible.
If anyone in Phila is reading this you can however count on me to be 
helpful if you have the wish and the energy to make a try.

BELOW IS BOB'S DESCRIPTION OF THE NON=PROXIMITY COMMUNITIES:
 Lots 
> of people are creating "virtual" communities by hosting events and 
> gatherings of people who share the same desire, to relate to people on 
> a more deeper level.  Hold a communities interest potluck at a local 
> community center or church and put fliers up at the organic food places 
> or health food stores. It will take 2 hours of your time to do this, 
> and I would bet you will get a good turn out, especially if the flier 
> is worded to attract those who are interested in community.
> 
> Cohousing is NOT the only form of community.  You can create a 
> community around you, still live where you do, and gain much benefit 
> from expanding your associations.  There is a thriving communities 
> support group in Seattle, which was started by a single woman who 
> wanted to contact others who were interested in getting together and 
> simply talking about community.  It has now broken into 4 subgroups, 
> because it got so large they couldn't hold a potluck in anyones house.
> 

> Rob Sandelin
> Northwest Intentional Communities Association
> 
> 
> 
I think, quite apart from my wish, this would be a useful thread to 
continue to periodically look at, since it goes to the heart of 
inclusiveness, exclusiveness, and also why coho is unique as a community 
form, and in what ways.

Judith Wisdom  
In Phila in a very nonintentional noncommunity, but searching
wisdom [at] pobox.upenn.edu