Cohousing-L Mailing List: developmental stages of cohousing

[Rod Lambert (rod]

What a great topic! Thanks Rebecca.
I have been observing something similar as well here at EcoVillage at 
Ithaca.
I would add two other thoughts to the discussion:

1.  There is a distinct process whereby some people withdraw from the 
community over time. I am beginning to  believe that if the community is 
able to proactively interrupt this process it could significantly affect 
the participation rate. We are looking at this now in the second nbhd - 
SoNG, so I don't have any fail proof process suggestions yet.

2.  If it is a problem to be solved, there are three areas to explore as 
I see it: (a) that's human dynamics, live with it; (b) there's something 
"off" with the batch of people in your community, maybe it will be 
'better' when some of them leave???  (c) leadership is lacking or 
turning people off in some way.
Not sure whether the first 2 suggest any action steps but I have also 
noticed the tendency for leadership to become more and more consolidated 
with the same faces showing up at committee meetings. I'm not sure that 
the "same faced" committees should assume that this always means that 
others don't care or that apathy is the same as consent. I suspect that 
leadership consolidation should be actively resisted. (I was interested 
in the previous discussion on "group think") Here we rotate the meeting 
organizing/facilitation task for instance - I hope that others on this 
list serve will make other suggestions.

Rod Lambert
EcoVillage at Ithaca, NY


On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Rebecca Reid<rreid [at] cohousing.com>  wrote:


> I have been noticing some changes at Pioneer Valley recently, and I would
> like to know if other communities have experienced anything similar. I have
> a theory about it that I would like to run by you and see what you think.
>
> Gradually, over the past few years I have noticed several things: one, that
> there is less participation in community business and decisions, as well as
> meals. Two, that there is a small core of people who continue to be
> interested in and work hard on things like the decision making process
> (planning meetings, deciding agendas, improving community conversation),
> membership process (waiting list, new member orientation), long range
> planning, and devoting time to policy and generally improving the process
> aspects of the community.  These people often stay on coho-l because they
> are interested in cohousing as a concept, as change agent, and they want to
> share ideas with other communities.  There is also a small core of people
> who are dedicated to the physical aspects of the community; they keep things
> repaired and running smoothly.  (I don't know where they fit into this
> theory of mine).
>
> The rest of the members (and this is a relatively large group) are content
> to live here and  have busy lives, rarely come to meetings and seem to
> be happy with the way things are running, or don't have time to think about
> it. They generally do their work requirement and continue to be good
> neighbors. They come to a meeting if the topic directly concerns them.
>
> Obviously these are not clearly delineated groups; someone can be invested
> in some community issue and become a burning soul on that issue, etc.  But
> generally seems to be a division between people who work hard on the
> community itself, and people who basically just want to live there.
> The "workers" tend to be retired people, who have been there for a long
> time--many are original founders. Many have been doing the same community
> jobs for years and are getting burnt out on doing them, complaining about
> how few people go to meetings, pay attention to their email, volunteer for
> this or that, etc.
> > From the side of the "workers" the "livers" look apathetic.  From the side
> of  the "livers", the "workers" look like nags and workaholics.
>
> I wonder if this isn't a developmental stage for cohousing communities that
> looks like this:
> A bunch of people who like to work collaboratively on creative projects get
> together and create a cohousing community.  They enjoy the work, the
> challenge, the satisfaction of seeing the project grow.  Then they enjoy
> improving and tweaking and changing it as they learn more and more about
> better ways to do things, and they enjoy adapting it as it naturally
> changes.  Other people join because they want a nice neighborhood with good
> neighbors and happy kids and dinner cooked for them regularly.  At first
> everyone is involved in this creative process. Then, the people who joined
> because they wanted a nice neighborhood gradually stop being involved with
> the creative endeavor and settle into the neighborhood.  The founders and
> others who joined them in the creative process continue to work and think
> hard about improving it, when--and this is my biggest question-it may no
> longer be necessary.  Maybe these people are holdovers from the stage of
> community creation, and have not caught up to the new phase, which is to
> just live in it.  The "workers" are afraid that it will become just another
> condominium, the "livers" point out that it's a lot better than that and
> actually works very well.
>
> I myself am about to leave Pioneer Valley because I didn't join for the nice
> neighborhood, but mainly for the joy and excitement of creating of a better
> way of life.  I want to continue working on this with other people who are
> also excited by the challenge, and living at Pioneer Valley feels like
> beating a dead horse, as they say.    I want to feel like I am working on
> something
> together, and it may be that this desire of mine is no longer appropriate.
> If the horse is dead, maybe it was at the end of its life anyway.  Maybe
> old-timers need to get swapped out, and let the community pass into a new
> phase: contented neighborhood.  Maybe meetings aren't necessary; maybe
> consensus process is too time consuming; maybe houses can go onto the open
> market and whoever comes will be great.  The community will still be fine-it
> will just be different.
>
> Rebecca Reid
> Pioneer Valley