Perceptions
From: Russell Mawby (russ.mawbycity.saskatoon.sk.ca)
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 16:01:40 -0500
I've just returned to this list after a couple of months away, and I find
it, well, interesting that I don't seem to have missed anything.  When I
opened up my mailbox to the flame war between a couple of habitues, I at
first thought I was somehow tapping into the archive. . .

I mention this because of the (IMO) more interesting question of "why bother
with cohousing"?

I think this is THE most important question of all, because the asking of
it, and the answering of it highlights some of the fundamental issues in how
and why we house ourselves in this culture.

First, a story.  My absence from this list was due to a big move half way
across the country, from Toronto to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan - about  3,000
km.  It happened all of a sudden in response to a wonderful opportunity to
apply some of the ideas from cohousing to the on-going development of a
whole (small) city - as the Housing Facilitator, working out of the Planning
and Building Dept.

I would like to share more about this job, and the tools (like a land bank)
that the city has developed over the years, but later.

What I want to touch right now on is the "quality of life" thing.  Many of
our friends thought we were somewhat nuts to pack up from the booming
metropolis of Toronto, God's gift to urban living, and move to this isolated
overgrown Prairie village of 200,000.  What we've found in the two months
we've been here is that our quality of life has improved *immeasurably*,
mainly because of things that don't show up on the $$ balance sheet, or the
real estate prospectus.

For example, I now live exactly 18 minutes walk, 9 minutes bike ride or 4
minutes drive from work.  This means I get to go home for lunch and hang out
with our new baby boy.  I also get to go home for supper, have a life, and
still have time for repairs, shopping, volunteer stuff, a sociable coffee, a
chat with the neighbours, and so on.  This is an incalculable benefit to our
lives, and, potentially to the life of our community (active engagement,
social health, etc.)

However, the real estate guy couldn't quite get his head around why we'd
rather live in a somewhat run down 1930's house downtown when there's all
these nifty new $100,000 beauties just 20 minutes drive from downtown.

The point I'm trying to make is that the question, "why bother with
cohousing?" is typically based on a bottom line approach, value for the
dollar, square foot and features approach to housing.  

The answers are mostly about being part of a human community - stuff that
doesn't (and perhaps shouldn't) show up on the bottom line.

It is this gap that, IMO, points to the real need, and yet real difficulty
of proposing this community-based approach to development.  Our quality of
life is something that is very hard to quantify, yet every measure we tend
to use is about putting a price tag on where and how we live.  This makes
cohousing somewhat of a hard sell, and it will remain so except for the few
of us who have done some examining of our lives.  In other words, cohousing
still seems to appeal mostly to the already converted.  Is this really a
problem??

It is if we continue to "sell" cohousing as an alternative product, which is
why I would like to reaffirm that we *can* get these quality of life things
without necessarily going out and building brand spanking new developments,
and that's why, to continue where we left off, I still think the "N-Street"
approach is the message we need to be sending, even over and above all the
other successful new projects - focus on the quality of housing and avoid
the quantity, list of features approach that we have trouble competing with.

Russell Mawby                   Ph : (306) 975-7666
Social Housing Facilitator      Fax: (306) 975-7712
City of Saskatoon               
222 - 3rd Avenue North                  
Saskatoon, SK  S7K 0J5          russ.mawby [at] city.saskatoon.sk.ca

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