Cohousing-L Mailing List: What creates community?

[Buzz Burrell (72253.2101]

It seems that a common theme underlying many of the message threads is this
question:
What creates community?

Site design?  Shared Vision?  Eating dinner together?  Relationships?  Something
else?

Cohousing involves a huge amount of group process and decision making, all for
the purpose of living in community.  But then I'm not sure if we know what
"community" is, and what actually makes it happen.  I don't anyway, so I would
like to invite comments and discussion on this basic question.  The context for
me, is that if we don't know the answere to this question that underlies our
whole basis for going through this big process, then we are groping in the dark
and spending a lot of time and energy without a clear goal to shoot for.  

My comments on this are:

Eating together - Most of the cohousing groups I've been to spend an amazing (to
me) amount of time considering the common house, and specifically, the
dining/kitchen.  The casual observer would conclude that eating dinner together
3-4 nights a week is the most important thing in the world.  
Since my lover and co-owner of my house and I eat dinner together only about one
night per week, I've often wondered about this.  I really want to live in
community, but don't care one way or the other about this practice of eating the
same thing at the same time.  
Some of the people I've seen in these common house discussions don't even appear
to like each other, which made me wonder about it even more.  My own conclusion
(what's yours?) is that this is a very nice, valid, and important
community-building factor for some people, but not for others, and that it has
somehow been transmuted into a general value assumed to be important for all
cohousing communities.

Site Design - For years I've thought there was an over-emphasis on buildings.
Then I realized that the people who coined the term "cohousing" are architects,
and that many of the coho promoters are professional developers.  That is the
reason a "buildings" and "designs" flavor permeates this movement.  This flavor
is not at all present in the larger Communities movement, where "relationships"
and "ideals" permeate the discussions.
This emphasis on buildings was so strong, I've never said anything because I was
afraid of being branded a pariah.  Then Rob S recently wrote: "In my experience,
design of the site has little effect on the real "community".  I have come to
believe that the definition of community is the relationships people have with
each other and their commitment to that relationship.  Site design has nothing
to do with this."  Someone with far better credentials than myself finally said
what I'de been thinking, thus taking me off the hook. 
This relates very much to the recent discussion of the Lot Development Model,
where people are relatively free to manifest their own personality in the design
and construction of their own houses.  The LDM would then seem an easier
development path while not harming the group spirit. 
I guess my current conclusion is that good design can encourage the creation of
community, but cannot create it.  It is an important but not paramount factor.
And furthermore, to emphasize it at the exclusion of other factors would be a
mistake.

Relationships - I also recently wrote that relationships are the crux of
community.  But then I just thought, "what creates relationships?"  (Answere:
good site design and eating together!)  So maybe relationships are the result of
some other factors. 
However, "commitment to that relationship" strikes me as being absolutely
neccessary.  With this factor present, community can happen in any context,
while without it, I'm not sure what one would end up with.

Shared Vision - Community can happen without this, but I think luck would also
have played an equal part in such an occurance.  If the only shared vision is to
live in cohousing, as is often the case here, that can work too, although there
will be a lot of time spent processing and discussing.  The key point is that
what the common values are is less important than that they are in common. (Know
of any Trekker communities forming)?

Another Factor - If one looks at communities world wide, probably the most
common factor is not that they eat together, but that they work together.
Literally; like they all grow rice or something.
Work is not a factor in the cohousing model, where the community usually
consists of commuters who drive off to work somewhere every day.

My Newest Idea - What seems to underlie all of these, but is mostly unspoken, is
INTERDEPENDENCE.  Design:  if the houses are designed to be large and
self-sufficient, no matter what the commonhouse looks like, it will be lightly
used;  if they are designed smaller and incomplete without the common
facilities, in other words, with interdependence in mind, then community can
happen.  Relationships:  if through meditation, personal philosophy, or
whatever, we see ourselves as being interconnected, with each other and/or with
all of nature and the world, then community has instantly happenned, and this
understanding can be used in all parts of the process.  Interdependence can be
designed into the way meetings are run, decisions are made, the community is
built, and the way we all relate to each other.
In short, there are many different ways and areas interdependence can be
understood, encouraged, and used, and it seems to me to be the paramount factor
of Community.  Therefore, it might be used as a cross check when the members are
analyzing or trying to decide on site design, group meals, work and play, and
all the other factors and aspects of cohousing. 

So I would say that:
1. I don't know exactly what creates community, but it is a real good idea to
openly discuss this question with each other, and acknowledge that what creates
it for you might be meaningless to the other.  It would be somewhat easier if
one's group was in general agreement on this, but more important is group
understanding of each other and a positive intention.
2. A commitment to that intention is neccessary.
3. A lot of different factors can lead to a sense of community.
4. A relationship of Interdependence, on some level, is inherent in community,
and may be a convenient focalizing philosophy.


Buzz Burrell
Boulder