Cohousing-L Mailing List: Building Community

[BPaiss (BPaiss]

Dear Friends bothe Old and New,

I have just pored through the weeks digests and am left with the profound
feeling that we are stuck.  It is obious that the most significant thing that
peole left the conferece with was what occured in the last 45 minutes of (for
some of us) a 4 1/2 day event.  No doubt it was powerful and for that reason
alone I would do it again...but please what did you think of the rest of the
time we spent together? (Other than that Mrs. Lincoln what did you think of
the play?) 

I would love to hear some discussion about the presentations, the networking,
the food, the tours, the resource room, the tone of the time we spend
together, the new connections which were made, the new insights which were
gained.  From my perspective, a lot happened for alot of people and all we
seem to be discussion is this and a new form of strawbale sheetrock!!!!!

Dan's suggest that we stick to "Base Model CoHousing" is ignoring the fact
that group decision making and values (translated into specific options) are
mutually exclusive.  I don't expect to see a coho commuinity with that kind
of focus until a professional team creates a spec project and for one would
think twice about wanting to live there.  

Rob commented that the reality is that "Every cohousing group is
exclusionary.  You exclude those who do not want to live cooperatively.  You
exclude those who are not interested in caring about their neighbors, you
exclude those who are unwilling to give up total personal automony.

Gary from Broward Commons added that "If muslim or all catholic cohousing
communities started popping up, the
movement will be in trouble.  I would encourage all of us to review the four
aspects Chuck and Katie layued out in the book as too what make something
CoHousing.  Resident Participation, Design to encourage community, common
facilities, and resident managed.  As long as a project has those factors it
can be CoHousing.  It says noithing about diversity, affordability, energy
efficiency, religious orientation and form of decision making.  We have added
all that ourselves.  How can we possibly come to the conclusion that if a
group of people want a non-diverse, religious community that it isn't
cohousing?

I totally agree with Rob when he says, "I for one would be interested to see
how a republican conservative christian group would make decisions.  I would
love to learn how low income black woman would use a commonhouse and what
sorts of sharing they did. The diversity within these groups can teach many
things."

I ultimately expect that we will be able to use our differences to strengthen
all of us a community which for me, is why I am doing this in the first
place.

Just some thoughts...thanks for listening.

Zev