Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is the term Cohousing hurting us?

[Pablo Halpern (phalpern]

Stephan Farley wrote:

>I know that the term "cohousing" is by now well-entrenched as the main
>descriptor of the movement, it being the title of the main book, the main
>journal, and the main mailing list, but I want to risk heresy by suggesting
>that the term may be hurting us and preventing us from sharing cohousing
>with a larger, more mainstream audience.

Any time you adopt a term for a movement or concept, you separate that
concept from the rest of the world. Although this has undesirable
consequences, it is absolutely essential for any movement to succeed. Giving
a name to something is one of the most powerful (in a positive sense)
actions one can take to in working with that thing. I don't think we could
have a powerful movement or internet mailing list without some term to
describe what we are doing.

OK, so did we pick the wrong term? I don't think so. Any term we choose is
likely to produce an automatic negative reaction from at least some segement
of the population. Call it "neo-traditional neighborhoods" and you will turn
off the liberals. Call it "communitarian housing" and you will turn off the
conservatives. The truth is that you cannot describe cohousing in two or
three words, so any attempt to do so will cause misunderstanding.  Harry's
suggestion of "Socially Sustainable Neighborhoods" suffers from this
problem. If we were not already discussing cohousing, I might take his term
to mean government social engineering or something. Also, the word
"sustainable" is a mega-buzzword these days, which would have turned me off. 

The nice thing about the term "cohousing" is that it is short and does not
attempt to be excessively descriptive. "Cohousing" is not a buzzword except
in the cohousing movement. Sure, some people who are not given a clear
explanation might conjure up their own meaning for it, but other people are
more likely to ask "cohousing, what's that?" than to assume they have the
term figured out for themselves.

In summary, I'd say the term Cohousing is helping more than it is hurting.
- Pablo

Pablo Halpern            phalpern [at] truffle.ultranet.com          (508) 
435-5274
New View Cohousing, Acton, MA