Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Urban cohousing

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Please pass this around. For reasons I don't understand yet, my mail 
can reply to individuals but I can't seem to get out to the mailing 
list on a regular basis.
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The best example of what you describe that I know of is an intentional 
community called Ganas in New York.  It is described  in the book 
called "Eco-Villages and Sustainable Communities" by the Gaia trust, 
sponsored and available from the Context Institute. They are a very 
urban cooperative and run a midsized business employing about 40 people 
if I remember right.  They also have a school for community learning.  
One of the organizers/leaders of Ganas, Mildred Gordon has a pretty 
good article in the Spring/Summer 1993 issue of Communities magazine 
(Number 80/81).

There is a group in Portland called Ongoing Concerns which bought 
several houses in an existing block and did some remodelling.  One of 
the key things in discussion of this nature might be defining where the 
boundaries are between Cohousing and Cooperatives.  Based on Charles 
Durret's definition of cohousing, many places that call themselves 
cohousing are really cooperatives, as they lack the element of a 
commons, which would apply to the Ongoing Concerns group.