Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: House Pricing in House Selection Process

[Hune Margulies (hm64]

Historically, equality of means (that is, income, and the ability to 
spend it) as been a main stay of communitarian oriented thinking. 
Admitedly, cohousing is not a socialist enterprise, however, in my 
personal view, and to the extent that the experience of, say, the 
Kibbutz, is relevant to this case, once disparities in socio-economic 
status appear, the fabric of the community weakens significantly.
Hune Margulies

On Wed, 24 Aug 1994, Mike Adams wrote:

> 
> 
> On Mon, 22 Aug 1994, Rob Sandelin wrote:
> 
> > David Hungerford wrote:
> >
> >text omitted
> > 
> >...Do you really want
> > to move into a community that has a pre-defined pecking order based on
> > income?
> > ____________________________________________________________________
> > 
> > 
> > I don't get the pecking order analogy here.  Whether I have a million 
> > dollars, or can barely pay my mortgage has no effect on my relationship 
> > to the community.
> >
> > text omitted
> > 
> > As long as participation is equal, that is my higher priced unit gives 
> > me no more say or voting power than a lower priced unit, then the 
> > economics of it should be used to benefit the commons.  Economic 
> > egalitarianism is in my opinion something which can lead a group into 
> > some bad decisions. For example if you make a bunch of design decisions 
> > based on the lowest economic denominator, in order to keep members in 
> > who have lower incomes, you may be unnecessarily limiting  everybody's 
> > choices.
> > 
> > text omitted
> >
> > Rob Sandelin
> > Sharingwood
> > 
> I think that your response oversimplifies the situation in a cohousing 
> community with respect to disparities in wealth and income.  Allocating 
> resources ( like housing ) by price is efficient only if money can act as 
> a proxy for the utility that someone will get from what is bought.  But 
> if in the same community you have families with four children living in 
> two bedroom units because that is what they can afford, and childless 
> couples living in four bedroom units, I think that it can effect the 
> dynamics of the community.  
> 
> And while nominally everyone has the same "power" (just as in this 
> country it is one person one vote) money provides an individual options 
> (like spending millions on tv campaign ads) that aren't available to 
> everyone.  In the cohousing environment, that may mean that assessments 
> are less of a burden, or that you can pay rather than personally doing 
> all of your allotted tasks.  I don't know that there is an easy anwer for 
> a better way.  I just think that David's concern is valid in the context 
> of living, working, and playing in close contact with your neighbors.
>