Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: On reducing commuting and bourgeois dreams [FWD]

[Fred H Olson WB0YQM (fholson]

David L. Mandel  <75407.2361 [at] compuserve.com>
is the author of this message but due
to a listserv problem it was posted by the COHOUSING-L sysop (Fred).
****************  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS *********************

        I just need to get in my 4 cents' worth on the stimulating 
commuting/starting a business at home discussion that's been going on this 
week.

        One obvious answer for many of us (Southside Park Cohousing) in 
pursuing our aspiration to live more environmentally friendly was to build on 
an abandoned site in a mixed (residential-commercial) neighborhood in downtown
Sacramento. When we agreed to buy our 1.3 acres from the city, there were 
three abandoned houses and a dilapidated electical contracting business. A few
more houses had long ago been demolished. The business was happy to sell to 
the city and move to larger, newer quarters; one unsalvagable house was 
demolished; one was moved to an empty lot around the corner and is still 
undergoing gradual rehab with a lot of sweat equity by two formerly homeless 
families who will eventually move in; and one, rehabbed as part of our 
project, is now home to three of our members in two stacked units. We have 25 
units in all, far more than the land originally held when it was divided up 
into single-family lots, but we still have plenty of open space for lawns, 
gardens and even parking. Each unit has one off-street space (we probably 
would have had fewer, but the city made us include 27, actually), and I'd 
guess that we have considerably fewer cars per adult than any of you suburban 
or rural cohousing groups. That's because even with Sacramento's horribly 
inadquate public transportation, I'd estimate that only about half commute to 
work by car. And even for most of those, the distance is fairly short. Our 
location enables many of us to walk or bicycle to jobs. Five bike sheds are 
situated on the sides of buildings, enough to hold all residents' bikes and 
all our common gardening/landscaping equipment.
        We've also talked about getting an electric car or two to share, and a
couple people were looking into it, though I haven't heard anything about it 
for a while. And yes, we do have electric outlets in some of our carports.
        .....
        Which brings me to my other 2 cents' worth, concerning the suggestion 
that we might try to establish businesses where we work, either as individuals
or in larger enterprises that might even support most of the community.
        First off, I'm highly allergic to the vision of a society of 
independent contractors. It's a role that far too many folks are being forced 
into by corporations that don't want the responsibilities that should come 
with employing real workers, like decent pay, health care, retirement, 
unemployment insurance and other benefits. It isolates workers from each 
other, undermining labor organizing efforts, and tends instead to put people 
in competition with each other for whatever contract crumbs are available. 
Sure, a few do very well, but many don't. And there's the whole different 
mentality that comes with working "for yourself," or at least thinking that 
you do: It's too easy, I believe, to slip into thinking only (or at least 
primarily, to survive) of short-term profit, not things like sustaining 
resources and joining forces with others similarly situated vis a vis 
employers to create a society that serves its members better and in a more 
collective fashion.
        The thought of forming enterprises owned by cooperatives of several 
members of a cohousing community is more attractively collective-minded on one
level but still shares the same ultimate contradiction. In capitalist society,
a business is inexorably driven to seek profit; otherwise it folds. Starting 
with ideals of sustainability, producing useful goods or services, and so on 
can often not be very viable; businesses are driven to grow, which most often 
means exploiting the labor of others, and to cut costs, which in our system 
often means environmentally incorrect practices.
        I've witnessed this as a longtime Israeli and ardent observer (plus 
sometime resident) of kibbutzim. As much as I was attracted by many aspects of
their lifestyle (some of which I'm trying to re-create in cohousing), the fact
that they also produced their own income led to massive and often obscene 
contradictions with their supposed socialist ideals. Expansion opportunities 
had to be seized, for instance, even if it meant hiring hundreds from outside 
and thus becoming a boss. And even if that didn't happen, there developed what
I call collective capitalism in which decisions on what, how much and how to 
produce were driven by the profit motive, not environmental or social 
concerns. The result: a kibbutz "movement" that encompassed a smaller and 
smaller segment of the population, enjoyed in most cases a relatively high 
standard of living, was perceived as elitist and snobbish by most of the real 
working class ... and that little by little abandoned much of its communal 
lifestyle as well.
        The lesson I draw: we can't and shouldn't pretend to be building 
socialism or ecotopia by constructing islands in a society that still runs on 
the principles of exploitation of labor and the Earth. That system must be 
challenged on the political and economic plane. I like cohousing because it 
creates a happier living situation for me and I think the spirit of 
cooperation and neighborliness we share is healthier for my children; because 
I hope it will make my life more efficient so that I and my neighbors can be 
more available to effect change in the larger society around us; and perhaps 
because in some small ways (careful not to exaggerate here) it does provoke 
thought about how housing is (and isn't) provided in our country and challenge
the alienating standard models of development. But it feels much easier to be 
part of such a larger movement when only part of my life revolves around this 
community of 25 households. I like it that we go off every day and work 
alongside other folks with different lifestyles. It gives us more of a chance 
to share our experience with them, and it keeps us better in touch with the 
concerns of others.
        And to bring this outburst back around to where I started, the reasons
I and at least some of my comrades were so adamant about wanting to do 
cohousing in the central city: Aside from cutting down the commute, we wanted 
to be an integral part of a larger, diverse community and believed that 
suburban or rural life would make that much less likely. We designed our homes
to blend into the neighborhood, balanced between an outward-looking focus and 
an inward cohesiveness (see my plug for our slide show a few days ago). And I 
have high hopes that by working with our other neighbors, we'll have an impact
on the quality of urban life in Sacramento. For starters, earlier this evening
I attended a monthly meeting of the Southside Park Neighborhood Association, 
in our common house. Several of our residents have become active, with other 
neighbors, in revitalizing the SPNA, and we had a fascinating discussion on 
topics of crime, drugs, a new neighborhood clinic, how to make our nearby park
more family-friendly, hopes for a community center. As we become more settled 
in our houses and in the neighborhood, I hope more of our energy will  go to 
such endeavors, and through them into the larger movement of urban 
neighborhoods in our city -- and state and country.
        Holding the fort against isolationist utopian tendencies (tongue 
partly in cheek here) in cohousing... and awaiting responses... David Mandel