Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: What creates community?

[Buzz Burrell (72253.2101]

Thanks to John Gear for some very interesting and provocative comments and
ideas.  I'm still mulling many of these over, trying to fit them into my
emerging thinking, and doing some self-reflection on my own reasons for what I
loosely call community.  His comments were so interesting, I have to think them
over some more.
But there was one comment I can't resist jumping into immediatly --

<<Do you consider golf course villages cohousing?  If not, why not?>>

Before I wrote my message, It so happens I had just returned from visiting my
father in an authentic golf course village, just as John described!  It was
wild;  I had never been to one.  This was called Sun City Center, is located 30
miles outside of Tampa Florida, and is stranger than some of the Tibetan
villages I've spent time in.  There's a "Florida Ford" (Lincoln
Continental-white only) sharing space with a golf cart in every garage, and the
covenents are a bureaurocrat's dream come true (everything looks identical;
everything except golf is a no-no).  The residents love it.  It's safe,
friendly, lots of meetings to go to, and certainly shared goals and values.
They borrow squad cars and run thier own security patrols on a voluntary basis
24 hours a day.  These communities are far larger, more successful (from thier
perspective), and more prevelent than anything we have ever created.  This is an
entire incorporated town.  One of the many results of this, so I've been told,
is that it is the only  municipality in the U.S. where golf carts are legal on
streets and highways (they passed thier own law).
Golf Course Communities are not cohousing though, because the residents don't
create them, and maybe for some other reasons.  They do have some uncanny
resemblences however, particularly for those of us with a kinky sense of humor.
At the time, I called it a "low-security prison", so community is in the eyes of
the beholder.

It has often been said that cohousing (as we've seen the Danish model being
manifested) is essentially a yuppie retirement community.  Which isn't a value
judgement at all ... I might go for it in an instant myself if instead of golf
(yuk), someone started a "Volleyball, African Drumming, Buddhist Meditation, and
Star Trek Community".  No one under 16 allowed to join (unless they are
Klingon), a sand court in front of every house, phones disconnected Sundays from
8-9pm, and a shuttle vehicle capable of warp speed in every garage.  Sound good?


Buzz Burrell
Boulder