Cohousing-L Mailing List: Effects of the "rich and powerful" on cohousing (Continued)

[Bob M . LKG1-3/A11 226-7570 (morrison]

On Sept. 7 biow [at] cs.UMD.EDU wrote:

>Subject: Cohousing and THEY as is THEM

>On 6-Sept. Bob Morrison <morrison [at] took.enet.dec.com> responded:
>>  I think the powerful (bankers, town planning boards, etc.) DO often oppose
>>cohousing, but do so mainly due to fear of the new and unconventional, not due
>>to a deliberate scheme to create alienation.

>This is closer to reason, but still misses the point. Mr. Morrison asserts that
>bankers and town boards are somehow "powerful." Depending upon your definition 
>of that
>word, they may be, but they retain their power only because and only for so
>long as they behave in ways that please their investors and constituents.

  I wish the common people did have this much control over bankers and town
boards, but I don't think they do. In the case of banks (which in this con-
text includes S&L's, credit unions, and mortgage companies), as "biow" says
later on in this post, the days of the Podunk National Bank lending its own
money for mortgages are gone. This situation IMO considerably reduces people's 
control over the mortgage business. Re town boards, at least in New England 
the planning and zoning board members are appointed, not elected, so the 
voters can only exert control by voting for selectmen, city councilors, mayors, 
etc. that they think will support their views on town planning. They can also
attend and speak at board meetings but my experience is that this only has a
slight effect on the boards' actions.

>Bankers hardly ever lend their own money. In fact, they rarely lend even the
>bank's money for residential real estate. Typically, your local bank merely
>fronts for a local mortgage company, which brokers the loan to a government
>chartered secondary market company. The money they lend today comes
>almost exclusively from insured, sliced, diced, and securitized mortgage
>debt instruments.

  I won't comment on the reasons why the "Podunk National Banks" as we knew
them 10 or 20 years ago are history. But I'm very glad "biow" reminded us of
this fact, because it's quite relevant to cohousing. A locally owned and
managed bank that lends its own money for mortgages is far more likely to
support unconventional local things like cohousing than a bank owned by out-
siders that acts as a "front" for remotely located mortgage companies. 

>>I think this alienation has occurred as a side effect of developers,
>>bankers, etc. considering housing a "commodity", not as a deliberate plan
>>of some sort.

>Commiditization puts products within the reach of people who otherwise
>couldn't hope to afford them. You may always choose to purchase outside
>the commodity market.

  This sort of misses the point of what I was saying. I agree that there is,
and has been for the last 50 years at least, a need for "commodity" housing
to put it within reach of lower-middle-income people. My concern is that
almost the entire housing industry, nation-wide, seems to be locked into
the same basic designs. This often happens when organizations, independently
of each other, start with the same basic assumptions and formulas and con-
vert them to designs. In the case of the housing industry, I think the main cri-
teria were what is least expensive to build (including land costs), what 
meets their *perception* of what the public wants, and accommodating the
"auto culture". This led to large developments (where economies of scale can
be realized), widespread use of a few basic home designs (ditto), and locating
on the outskirts of town (where access by car is easier but ownership and use
of cars is usually the ONLY access).
  The problem with this formula is that creating a sense of community was
not considered because the people in control (developers, architects, etc.)
either didn't think of it at all or could not assign a dollar value to it
and therefore removed it from consideration.
  This is one of several reasons why so many people feel alienated in their
housing arrangements. 

> Feel free to assemble your own computer from scratch.
> But if so, be prepared for the costs.

  This is a good analogy for why it is so difficult to do cohousing compared
to conventional housing. If large developers were interested in cohousing,
it would be far easier. Because they are not, it is a lot like "building a
computer from scratch". 
  (Digression: Building a computer from scratch seems preposterous today, but
I know of several people who did it 20 years ago because there were no com-
puters on the market that met their needs. Sort of like the dilemma we are in
today trying to do cohousing.)

Bob Morrison

Home: Boxboro, MA               Work: Digital Equipment Corp., Littleton, MA