Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Building Community

[Tbeni (Tbeni]

Fascinating discussions on cohousing and religion.  I've always felt that
there should be seven criteria for cohousing, not four:  common facilities,
private dwellings, resident-structured routines, resident management, design
for social contact, resident participation in the development process, and
pragmatic social objectives. 

The reason for the seventh is that there are strong and fundamental
differences between cohousing and intentional communities.  McLaughlin, in
the book "Builders of the Dawn," explained that members of collectives and
intentional communities often see themselves as building a new society and
new forms of the family.  Communities founded on strong religious ideals
(Bruderhof), or in the belief that people from outer space offer guidance
(Stelle), or those where economic means and child-rearing are shared
(kibbutz, Twin Oaks) are all valid functioning communities but are not
cohousing. 

After a quarter of a century, and over 300 built cohousing communities in
Europe, I can safely say that a religious community with a cohousing type
site layout would not fall under the definition of cohousing.