Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Millenials and Housing

[Crystal Farmer (crystalbyrdfarmer]

I agree there is a synergy across generations. I didn't even mention that I
(30 year with a daughter) am living right beside my mother and grandmother
(who live together), so there are lots of opportunities for helping each
other with care, grocery shopping, and moving heavy things. I think it
would be awesome to design communities that encourage this type of
cooperation. Or maybe create the zoning laws that would allow it to happen
naturally as people age in their homes.

This family in Charlotte built tiny houses on their property for younger
people:
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/living/home-garden/article36283785.html

Crystal Farmer
Charlotte Cohousing Community

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There is beneficial synergy here where retired elders provide the housing
(often an empty-nest large home) and the youngsters provide physical help
and household income, especially where housing is very expensive in
full-employment high-demand areas (in our case, San Francisco/Silicon
Valley, but also our compadres in high-tech Boston and Seattle environs).

... There is a natural tension between parents and children (establishing
independence) but a natural comfort between grandparents and children
(?sharing a common enemy?) that helps three-generation living arrangements
work well. As we consider co-housing (or any of the many euphemisms and
variation for cooperative/collaborative residential situations), we should
ponder whether the late 20th Century concept of separate family home in
suburbia is still relevant, even if arranged in a cooperative ?village?,
when Millennial household formation is occurring less and less, probably
driven by economics but also by a psychosocial shift from the Me-thinking
of the Boomer generation to the We-thinking of Millennials.
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