Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: the meaning of community

[Edward J OConnell (ejo]

I think you'd really need some shared sense of purpose beyond just 
interest in cohousing or in the abstract ideal of community, to produce 
the kind of connection you're talking about reliably.

The artistic communities I've moved in have been motivated by attempts to 
do very difficult things. And at that, they've been unstable, breaking 
and reforming faster than you'd want for cohousing.

Perhaps the affluence needed to join cohousing creates insulation between
community members. Perhaps necessity is the mother of community. The 
people I've noticed sticking together the tightest have been fringy 
weirdos with minority values, like myself. Or tightass conservative 
libertarian survivalist types. 

Perhaps as the country and world disintegrates into chaos over the next 
generation, necessity will breed community, to replace the overarching 
sense of community we once had through vanishing public institutions. 
(Public schools, the three television networks, a common language, etc.)

Cohousing will probably have to be refined to the point where it solves 
deeper problems than simple existential angst. Retirement communities, 
for instance, solve a problem, and they will flourish. Especially when 
the social security trust fund bellies up.

Jay