Cohousing-L Mailing List: coho diss

[Cecilia Winters (cwinters]

Greeting Heather and Cohousing Bulletin Board,

I am an academic economist at Manhattanville College in NY.  I am doing some
writing/research on balancing work and family and have latched on to the
concept of cohousing as a vehicle for attaining the aforementioned balance.

To be publishable, all (or most) economic research must contain a good
healthy dose of quantitative data.  I'm wondering if any data on cohousing
establishments are available, and if someone wouldn't mind sharing them with
me?

Specifically, I think I would need to start with:

the number of established coho communities in North America.

the year the first one(s) was(were) established.

the number of households in each coho community.

demographic profile of the members:  age, marital status, occupation,
income, rate of turnover in the community (how long does the average family
remain in the community and how many houses per year are sold/bought in any
established coho community?), children, lifestyle preferences (how's that
for social scientist vagueness?) race employment, and level of education.

Do you think any cohousing community in the Northeast would be willing to
subject itself to such a study by answering a survey of questions like this?
As I am just getting started, and have never done research in this vein
before, I would certainly welcome comments and suggestion.

I was especially excited by Heather's letter in the Fall 1995 volume of
Cohousing magazine.  Do you have any information or advice you would like to
share?  I am terribly interested in viewing your work, in progress though it
may be.

I look forward to receiving feedback from experienced cohousing aficionados
and academic researchers alike.

Thank you for your attention

Cecilia Winters
Assoc Prof of Economics
Manhattanville College
Purchase, NY 10577
914 323 5468