Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re:What is (creates) community

[Joaniblank (Joaniblank]

This thread is good fun. Also want to incorporate a response to Laurie (re
affordable cohousing). One of the reasons cohousing is relatively expensive,
is that providing enough private space and stuff for individual households,
namely our own bathrooms, kitchens, and private living rooms (as well as
household furnishings and appliances) adds to the cost more--much more--than,
say, shared laundry facilities or tools saves.  We often talk about the fact
that unlike any other kind of shared housing, cohousing has adequate
provisions for privacy. The way I say it to visitors is that we don't have to
share our bathrooms or our kitchens and we can make love or play the kind of
music that only we like (or listen to NPR) in the living room. 

Not having to share my bathroom, kitchen and living room is a really big deal
for me, and I am grateful that I can afford to live in cohousing where I have
my own; for me, it enables me much more active paricipation in
community--which is why I am bringing it up in this thread. Gone are the days
when I can enjoy hanging out with a neighbor or doing a project together if
at the same time I am feeling resentful that he or she always leaves dirty
dishes in our shared sink, leaves wet towels on the bathroom floor, or plays
music I can't stand in our common living area.

Also, I wouldn't want to live, at this stage in my life (mid fifties) in a
community with as much intentionality or as many shared values as many
communities in the Communities Directory seem to have or desire. I find that
living with people with whom I have significant differences sharpens my
thinking and deepens my feelings about what is important to me. Someone
pointed out to me recently that the words competition and competence have the
same root, that young Greek atheletes, had to leave their villages to find
the best athelete in a neighboring to "compete," with, not to conquier the
other, but to improve his own skill. Is it stretching a metaphor too far to
compare this to reaching outside ourselves to our families, or outside our
households to our community(ies) in order to know ourselves better? 

I'm enjoying people's lists of what creates community for them. Here're my 2
cents for the day: doing laundry together, cooking together, and security.
The last is a big one for me. I would never live in Doyle St.'s neighbbor