Re: The Future of Cohousing
From: Wayne Tyson (landrestcox.net)
Date: Sat, 5 Feb 2011 21:33:54 -0800 (PST)
CoHo:

While I am an outsider, I share Zev's cautionary attitude with respect to conferences. While I enjoy the camaraderie of getting together for bull sessions as much as anybody, my concerns are many and varied (expense, resource-sucking, power-concentrating, point-evading, etc.), but I hasten to add that I am speaking generically, not specifically about co-housing conferences in particular. Listservs like this one are cheap ways to wring out preliminaries that can set the stage for committed, continuous action. I, for example, am not able to make such a commitment at this point.

I hope that Zev and others will pitch in here with more specifics; as an ignorant outsider especially, I need to know some specifics before I can integrate and synthesize my own ideas and experience into a congenial direction.

I, for example, am a very social being, but not much of an organization man. The very labels "Executive Director" and "CEO" scare the hell out of me. That's because of past experiences with the concentration of power that I believe is fundamentally corrosive of social transformation. I like the idea of "adjustment" and adaptation, of resilience, continuous feedback loops and optimal integration. But these are just words. What I yearn for is the kind of social intercourse at all levels that actually moves toward adaptation to the economic and other realities of which Zev speaks so eloquently. I quite agree that ". . . the economic challenges we are experiencing today are not simply some deeper than usual recession but in hindsight reveal itself as the early stages of a societal transition to a more local, humane, and sustainable country." Well, if not the country, at least some alternatives that can set an example and test the concepts through a continuous process of transformative growth in all dimensions. This, too, is just talk. But I hope to help move the talk into a coalescing of a shared commonality by urging those more familiar with co-housing than I.

WT

----- Original Message ----- From: "Zev Paiss" <zpaiss [at] comcast.net>
To: <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Saturday, February 05, 2011 8:19 PM
Subject: [C-L]_ The Future of Cohousing



Hello Again,

Very interesting. It seems that the idea that it is time for cohousing
to seriously address the issues of affordable housing has touched a
nerve. So far all the private and public responses support the need
for cohousing to boldly go where it has rarely gone before. I want to
be clear that this issue is not a new one for me. The cohousing
community I have lived n for the past 14 years contains over 60% (7 of
11) permanently affordable homes.

If we can do that here in Boulder, Colorado I know we can do this and
more throughout the rest of the country.

Since Boston in 2008, I have consciously chosen to not participate in
the national conferences. This has been primarily because I felt it
was somehow a bit dishonest to get folks excited about cohousing while
the frozen financial system made developing these communities as we
had been doing since 1991, virtually impossible.

It is not that the desire for a cohousing way of life was waning, only
that the development methods we had relied upon for the previous 17
years were no longer viable. Now it is asked of us to take what we
have learn and apply that knowledge to development models that can
success in these times.

The Cohousing Association is in the early stages of looking for a new
Executive Director. This is the perfect time to propose a necessary
adjustment to the work of this organization to match the realities of
2011 and beyond. I firmly believe that the economic challenges we are
experiencing today are not simply some deeper than usual recession but
in hindsight reveal itself as the early stages of a societal
transition to a more local, humane, and sustainable country.

Let's make sure that cohousing is front and center in this transition.

In Community,

Zev Paiss

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