Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Cohousing - must it be resident built?

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Jerry wrote:
>I suspect that full-blown cohousing, with community meals and the whole
>nine yards, may need to be built by the residents in order to work. But I
>also suspect that the architectural features of cohousing could be used by a
>developer to produce a collection of dwelling units that could, eventually,
>evolve into a fairly tight-knit community.

My friend John Affolter, who has been involved with cooperative housing 
since before I was born, privately shared this bit of wisdom with me 
after he had attended a tour I was giving for a bunch of visitors, in 
which I pointed out all the community in our development:

"Community is not about roads, or houses, or mailboxes or architecture 
of any kind. Community is the relationships between people and their 
commitment to those relationships".

In those terms I know of several places which have lots of community 
and no architectural enhancements and some places which have lots of 
architectural enhancements and little community.  This connects to all 
those threads I posted earlier about vision and identifying community goals.