Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Poverty, By America

[Steve Welzer (stevenwelzer]

> And what has cohousing to do w/ all of this?

There never has been and never will be egalitarianism within the social
context of mass society.

> In the late '60s early '70s I read How The Other Half Lives and Tally's
Corner.

What started to be recognized at that time was the importance of the issue
of scale. There was "The Greening of America" by Charles Reich in 1970 and
then "Small Is Beautiful" by E. F. Schumacher in 1973 and then "Human
Scale" by Kirkpatrick Sale in 1980 . . . saying that people will best care
for and about each other within a communitarian context.

Similarly: We had, at the time, expressed the desire for a more
participatory form of democracy. Such just can't be implemented within a
nation-state of hundreds of millions.

So one thing we can do in the cohousing movement is model "best practices"
in regard to democracy, social/ecological responsibility, egalitarianism,
etc. by advocating and demonstrating the revitalization of local community
life.

Steve Welzer
Altair EcoVillage project participant