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

[Shava Nerad (shava]

> >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? 

No, I was just pointing out that it was an issue that my group was 
discussing and trying to address directly.

I don't specialize in answers, only questions....

> 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"? 

Actually, we've talked about domes, and vaguely about straw bale.  Some
of this is pretty restricted by land use and other code regulations here.

At least one alternative we've discussed, we found that we would have to
be zoned as an RV park...  It's weird...

> 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.
> 
Not sure what the difference might be between bartering labor and sweat
equity, other than that we wouldn't require people to be able to do 
heavy labor...  The person who runs the paperwork around to the planning
agency and the contractors is probably sweating too, though, for different
reasons...;)

> 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.

Isn't a great deal of discussion on this group about how to present the
idea of cohousing to uninvolved outsiders?  Like, potential coho residents,
planners, architects, politicians, banks, insurance providers, and such?

And I think that this meta-community (this virtual community of coho
communities and interested friends) is one that I am interested in 
being diverse, honest, and clear on differences.  I don't care that we 
have differences, but I think it's healthy that they be discussed.

Perhaps you are mistaking a natural gadfly tendency for lack of confidence?
*shrug*  As someone said a few days ago, that's between me and my
[postulated] therapist.  I grew up in a community that encouraged the
confrontation of contradictory assumptions.  [my dad's a retired UU 
minister]

Shava