Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Creating community <FWD>

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

DANR510 [at] AOL.COM is the author of this message but is not a subscriber
(as described below) it was posted by the COHOUSING-L sysop.

My friend in San Francisco and I (in Berkeley) have been looking 
into CoHousing. She's a lurker here, and I've been reading her 
downloads. Does that make me a 2nd gereration lurker? I'm posting 
separately so I won't embarrass her with this if she wants to log 
on. I hope it doesn't cause any problems if I post without being 
subscribed. 

Rob, my version of what you're saying is that there's an optimum 
compromise (like with most everything) between building community 
and building the "physical plant", and we're way on the physical 
plant side of the optimum. We read in the CoHousing book that many 
more people wish they had built in more opportunities for community 
rather than more privacy (my broad interpretation), as though they 
think it comes with the lumber. It's what you do, not what you have.

On the other hand, you said community will happen if people are 
committed. I don't think you added the universal fudge factor, 
"enough". You put us in categories of committed or not committed. 
There's a very large grey area in the range of commitment. It will 
happen if we're committed "enough". Or, to be precise (without 
really saying much), our success will be a function of our 
committment.

Being a kind of simple-minded guy, it seems to me like part of the 
problem is that now the real estate people and other professionals 
have gotten hold of the idea and will make it much more complicated 
than it needs to be, because that's how they make their money.

I'm happy to see that CoHousing is apparently taking off. I wish 
that my ideal was doing as well. I see co-housing as a compromise 
between what is and what could be. I'd like to live more communally. 
The extreme of this would be with no permanently assigned private 
space, rooms designated according to activity, including for solitude. 
But none would be "my" room. I haven't lived in any situation close 
to this and I'm not at all sure I could for long, but I'd like to 
try it. Again, it would work if others members were "enough" like 
me, and some different, in the right ways. I recognize the need for 
compromise.

I've thought about the possibilities of a typical co-housing 
structure with part of the common house, or a large separate unit, 
as residence for a commune. I'd like a continuum of levels of community. 
How would you all feel about that? Or, what can constitute a family 
unit? My perception is that co-housing is oriented mainly toward 
nuclear families and a few singles. Do you have any concerns about 
co-housing leading to more intimacy within the community than you 
intended?