Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing and I both show up in the New York Times......sort of

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hi Joani! Thanks for sending the article. This is like the fourth major article 
in two days on cohousing.  Something must be in the water…

Maybe it's late at night so I'm not thinking to sharply… can you explain why 
you don't like the headline?

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma village cohousing
Washington DC

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 24, 2015, at 10:30 PM, Joani Blank <jeblank [at] swansway.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> "What the Single Ladies Have Wanted For More Than A Century"
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/what-the-single-ladies-have-wanted-for-more-than-a-century.html?_r=0
> 
> When I heard the headline for this NYT article/editorial--I almost/plotzed/ 
> (look it up in The Joys of Yiddush)!  The author of the piece told me she was 
> doing a story on what she called communal housing as a retirement option, and 
> after I convinced her that cohousing did not mean sharing a large house with 
> one kitchen, she snuck in the question about how many of our homes in Swan's 
> Market Cohousing--Oakland, CA (where I've lived for 15 years now--my, how the 
> time flies) were owned and resided in by a single adult.
> 
> She was going to have the NYT photographer from Sacramento drive to Oakland 
> to take a picture here, but when I talked to the photographer, I suggested 
> that instead of taking a two-hour drive in the morning rush hour to take one 
> picture of my community (a picture unlikely to have any people in it), he 
> might prefer to drive a dozen blocks from his home to take a picture of a 
> much more 'classic' cohousing community, which is how he ended up at 
> Southside Park Cohousing in, duh, Sacramento!
> 
> It turns out that, in spite of the condescending headline which I heartily 
> hate, this is not at all a bad article, although it isn't really about 
> cohousing. What I like about the article is contained in these paragraphs:
> 
> "But homes built for nuclear families may not work for single adults living 
> together. They might need big common rooms, more clearly separated spaces for 
> privacy, and even multiple entrances. [kinda like cohousing--jb]
> 
> "Even if innovations like these become more common, many Americans still 
> aren’t comfortable with the idea of living with people who aren’t related by 
> marriage or blood. The idea of cohabiting with unrelated people not solely 
> out of financial necessity but as way to share a life, said Bella DePaulo, a 
> social psychologist, “just hasn’t been part of our cultural consciousness.”
> 
> "Of course, sharing life this way isn’t always easy, either, Ms. DePaulo 
> points out. Living singly means relying on friends in ways that people used 
> to rely on nuclear [I would add 'and extended'---jb]  families, and that can 
> create new kinds of friction."
> 
> Having been an anthropology major, I like seeing attention being given to the 
> cultural reasons why shared or community living of any kind is so unappealing 
> to many of us individualistic Americans. For an American couple or family who 
> find that sharing a single family house or an apartment with members of one's 
> immediate (nuclear) family is difficult enough, any kind of life sharing 
> beyond that nuclear family, would necessarily be extremely unattractive, if 
> not an anathema!
> 
> Even if that family felt that having more of a sense of community with those 
> that live closest to them would be beneficial, they would find the loss of 
> privacy (real or imagined) way too high a cost to pay for the benefits of 
> community.
> 
> Here's the url again for those of you who did not read the article before 
> reading my musings on it:
> http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/what-the-single-ladies-have-wanted-for-more-than-a-century.html?_r=0
> If this takes you to the home page of the NYT, just put "single ladies" in 
> the internal search engine  of the Times and you'll find the article.
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
>