Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho & LIFESTYLE CHANGES--> Sustainability?

[Stuart Staniford-Chen (stanifor]

Judy writes

<much good sense deleted>

> I'm curious, I assume the N Street model has gotten lots of awareness thru 
> the whole cohousing thing - does anyone know of groups following that 
> example?  It is very appealling to me.

We have gotten a lot less attention (eg from the media) than other 
communities. I think there are several reasons for this

1) Organic cohousing is inherently less visible - from the street nothing 
much seems to change (or only rather slowly).  It's less newsworthy because
nothing is getting built.

2) We have historically been rather scruffy compared to richer, built 
from scratch communities (though that is changing slowly).  Some people 
judge by appearances (I'm amongst them!).

3) We haven't always made too much outreach effort ourselves.

4) Some people (apparently including Chuck Durrett) didn't always think 
that we were really cohousing - which made us confusing and therefore 
easier to ignore.

(Of course, we have somehow become quite visible on cohousing-l :-)

Other groups I'm aware of which are similar include

* Ongoing concerns in Portland, OR.  Last I heard (when Jeff Hobson visited
  them) they had five or six houses.
  
* Examples in Toronto mentioned by Russell Mawby recently
        (Re: Coho under our noses [FWD] Mon, 6 Feb 95 14:14:48 CST) 
        
* Community in Seattle mentioned by Rob Sandelin.

* Groups in East Arlington and Erie St, Cambridge mentioned in Summer '94
        issue of Cohousing Boston.
        
I don't know much about these groups - how far along they are, and to what
extent they consider themselves Cohousing.  Would love to hear more about 
these or any others.

Stuart.
N St Cohousing.

Quote of the day:
"So I guess that makes you and me and the rest of us a bunch of extremists
huh?  :>"  (Rob Sandelin on cohousing-l - May 24, 1994)