Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Community interactions

[Rob Sandelin (robsan]

Greg Wadlinger [at] dartmouth.edu Wrote:

At this point in my life I want to feel supported, listened to, 
needed...(warm and fuzzy?).  I want my daughter, who will be born any 
day now, to have neighbors who, along with her father and mother, can 
qualify as role models and *heroes* rather than as people she will vent 
on about on the next Sally Jesse Raphael show.

Does a planned community hold out any prospect for facilitating this,
or are these circumstances rather to be *lucked into* in our lives?  If the
latter, I guess I'll stay put and take my chances.




The answer in my experience is yes and no.  Yes Cohousing and other 
planned communities can offer support, listening, and role models and 
heroes.  At our best at Sharingwood that is exactly what we have, and 
much more.

No Cohousing is not perfect, not everyone will be warm and fuzzy or 
even care about you or the community, nor will provide role models or heroes.

What you get, again from my experiences with my own community and 
visting others is a mixture, the good with the bad.  Communities are 
born, grow and can die.  In the growth people in communities change, 
learn and hopefully improve the aspects that need improving.  Cohousing 
groups are babies at this, we are just being born and have years and 
years to learn and work on the subltles of group dynamics and 
interaction and communication. To me, that is part of the excitement of 
being involved in the community where I live.  I know, from my own 
experiences with the community that we change and grow each time we 
meet, each month, year after year.

There are wonderful heroes for my daughters at Sharingwood, adults who 
love them and care for them.  There are also some adults who are not 
really interested in them and don't really interact with them much.  
That's OK too.

I evangalize cohousing because I think, even at its worse, it offers 
great improvements over standard neighborhoods full of fearful and 
distrusting strangers.

Rob Sandelin
Puget Sound Cohousing Network
Building a better  society, one neighborhood at a time