Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: We're not coho?

[David B. Neeley (dneeley]

>I want to found an intentional community (thereby, defined by an 
>self-chosen but like-minded -- ergo not totally open -- population)
>which instead of creating a commune wants to use the cohousing model
>of village-like architecture, common house, pedestrian ways, and so on.
>
>There are some people on this list who believe I should *not* be 
>calling my group cohousing(c) because I am involved in an intentional
>community?

Cohousing most often seems to define only the form of community,
irrespective of philosophy other than the preference for residents to live
in such a community. It seems a shame the "politically correct" folks are
trying to coopt the term. Perhaps they should chat with some of the Danish
folks that have been living in coho projects for twenty years or so.

>
>I don't think that's in the definition in the cohousing(c) book, and
>frankly, I find it pretty discouraging. 

Why be discouraged about what anyone else says beyond your own group? No one
is holding a gun to your head and forcing you one way or another...unless
it's a building official interpreting an antique building code...but that's
another story.

>I hope that my community is going to be open in terms of race, religion,
>etc, and so on.  We're not saying that people who are not of our specific
>philosophy cannot live there, only that people who don't feel comfortable
>with us shouldn't bother.  This seems to me no different from a lot of
>coho groups who essentially haze new folks to make sure they are able
>to deal with the cultural peculiarities before they consider buying.
>
>/* Shava goes into troublemaking mode: */
>It seems to me that most coho projects are narrowed in terms of one
>very important criterion -- class.  How many coho projects include
>low income housing?  I've heard of some.  Can you truly say that your
>community is the reflection of an open community when you don't include
>people of all social and economic classes?  As a note, our coho plans
>include (but may not eventually, due to economics) rental and barter
>quarters (i.e. some rental for money, and some rented for work done on
>behalf of the community).

And is this plan for a form of indentured servitude somehow morally superior
to any alternatives? If what you want to do is open your community for
participation by folks of lower economic levels, why not design using
strawbale or earthship construction, for instance, and do a good bit of the
work yourselves to reduce the economic impact and thus open the project to
some "sweat equity"? You may find this will also self-select those who will
work from those who may wish to "slide by" and be the focus of dissension in
your group. It also seems to afford a great deal of cohesiveness among the
members of the community, while placing less emphasis on material wealth.


>
>So, I want to know, is this an architectural model, or a social model?
>If it's an architectural model, it's much less exclusive -- it means that
>any kind of group can adopt it.  If it's a social model where people who
>can afford to buy into houses in an architectural enclave, creating
>a nice community, how is it different (except by detail of architecture)
>from a suburban enclave?
>
>I don't *think* that's what cohousing is.  But I think it's a question
>we need to address.  How does the cohousing community react when people
>say, this is just another form of yuppy enclave, that makes one feel 
>better about social consciousness than .8 acre lots?

Why should you feel compelled to react at all to what uninvolved outsiders
say? Perhaps if you feel self-confident in doing the right thing, the
opinions of others won't matter so much. Perhaps if you lack that
self-confidence you may not yet have found the right thing to do at all.