Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: Porches/Stoops/Anti-Social Behavior

[Harry Pasternak (Harry_Pasternak]

Lynne
With respect to your posting that said :

c> Harry contends that people haven't become less social, they just
c> don't behave in neighborly ways any more because a conspiracy of
c> evil architects stopped designing front porches.  I won't presume
c> to  describe Canadian society, since I don't live there.  But I
c> have  observed the enormous changes in community behavior (or lack
c> of it)  in America over the last 35 years. 
c> 
c> A recent Boston Globe article struck me as exemplifying the extreme
c> lengths to which our society has come to value individualism over 
c> community, and personal autonomy over shared experiences.  Research
c> studies show that the average number of TVs per household is about 3
c> and increasing rapidly......
c> 
c> Is it any wonder that in a culture where people increasingly avoid
c> interacting with even their closest family members, most do not
c> seek interaction with their neighbors?  Does anyone think that the
c> family above -- not at all atypical -- would be organizing block
c> parties  and devoting their weekends to community projects, if only
c> they had a front porch?  Come on, the only way they'd sit on a
c> front porch is if there was a TV -- make that 3 TVs -- and that
c> would kind of defeat the community-building purpose.

Here are a few notions that come to mind in response to the above:

-In case you misunderstood my postings, good neighborhood design, for
positive social networking, involves thirty or more elements (not just a
porch and a front lawn or garden ...)- just in case you had that impression.

I received a letter (together with some research reports from a journal)
today from Denmark, here is how a Dane, who is actively invovled in
cohousing, put it:
    " Design cannot create community against odds, but community can
certainly be    furthered or impeded by design."

- Canada may be more "friendlier" than the USA; but, I doubt it. As well, I
don't doubt your own feelings about how you see the lack of social networking
in your own personal circumstances. But being guided solely by personal
beliefs- can produce solutions, which may in the end- not produce the
expected outcomes.

There is a large quantity of scientific research available, on cohousing,
good neighborhood  design, cooperative management of neighborhoods etc.
etc.--all I am suggesting is that people interested in cohousing read and
utilize the material--rather than relying on mainstream media's viewpoints or
other limited viewpoints. For example, you state that: 

 c> Yes, attached garages, lack of front porches, and deep setbacks 
c> certainly decrease neighborhood interaction.  And that is exactly 
c> what a majority of Americans want -- to be "protected" from other
c> people, and to maintain their privacy.  At any cost.

I wonder if you had searched the literature to support your beliefs? When a
cohousing neighborhood is being planned, who is supposed to do the necessary
search of the literature?-the architect?, the developer?, the cohousing
consultant?, the builder?, or the people who are going to live there? Does
anyone do it? Does everybody expect that the others involved have done it? Or
is it simply not done. 

Harry Pasternak
Thousand Islands Institute



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