RE: Front Porches & Community Building
From: Rob Sandelin (robsanmicrosoft.com)
Date: Mon, 31 Jul 95 11:28:14 PDT
Front porches, gathering nodes, sidewalks and front gardens, sight 
lines and other  physical elements and principals seems already well 
known to most the cohousing architects at this point. (granted 
architects doing cohousing are a select few at this point)  There are 
endless refinements to these of course, and each application shows new 
insights worthy of passing along.

One thing which I will add to this is that front porches and such 
things  in of themselves have little value as social places if you have 
nothing in common to talk about and have no social inclination. In a 
community you have a selected population of people who are socially 
inclined.   I had a conversation with a fellow traveler who pointed out 
that where he lives in suburbia, he has found that none of his 
neighbors have any interest to him. They do not share much in common, 
have different values, etc. and so, even though his particular house is 
oriented to the pathways such to encourage conversations, since there 
is little to talk about, and people being generally distrustful of 
folks who have different values than their own, little social 
interaction occurs.  He has found his neighbors to be a generally 
anti-social bunch.  They don't have parties, they don't seem to get 
together with people other than perhaps once a week at church.  In 
contrast, he, being a social person, has many parties and get togethers 
at his house, and at others.

I think one of the prime  forces behind intentional communities 
including cohousing is that people share some level of cooperative 
values which then gives them a reference point to start relationships.  
Community is a bunch of people who want  relationships with other 
people. If everyone around you is not attractive in some level that you 
WANT to have a relationship with, then you tend to withdrawal.  The 
porch never gets used, the fences go up.    So now the question is 
raised, what makes people anti-social?  Is it simply the lack of 
designed socializing spaces?  I doubt it.

 I mean look at yourself (me included) this very minute.  You are 
staring at a video terminal by yourself.  Is this the future?  Will 
social behaviors be selected against and success measured in terms of 
how well you manage the machine?  Currently economic success is being 
equated to the machine I am typing on.  Look at all the hoopla over 
Billg and his billions.

I am free wheeling a thesis here that  the American consumer society is 
 geared to anti-social behavior and its success is dependent upon 
anti-social behavior.  Our economy is dependent upon people working for 
others so they can buy sustenance, knickknacks and services.  
Cooperative social behaviors, on a large scale, means much less buying 
of personal goods and services, and less need to work for others.  I 
get a lot of my food right from the distributor via a cooperative 
network,  and so some grocery store is not getting my business.  
Suppose lots and lots of people did that. The ramifications 
are....Paradymn shifting!

Rob Sandelin





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