Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: the "early years"

[David G Adams (dadams]

> As others have said, and I have said as well, Philadelphia seems like a 
> particularly difficult "market" for cohousing, for a number of reasons. 
> Apparently Broward County and upstate N.Y. may be similar places. Is it 
> actually different on the West Coast, or in New England? 
Easy in New England?  NOT.
* New View (in the Northwest Exurbs of Boston) has taken at least 6 years, 
and they are finally moving in.  They had some kind of early year crisis 
when they lost a site in South Acton.

* Cornerstone (my old group), in the inner suburbs, grew remarkably quickly. 
 Took under 2 years to get to 17 committed families.  Plus we had about 5 
serious associate households.  Our orientations, with marketing help from 
The Cohousing Center, drew 5 - 20 households once or twice per month, for a 
full year.  A good mix of older folks, single folks, single parents, and 
young families.  We went through a phase of only attracting older women, but 
things evened out over time.  Men and boys were outnumbered big time, even 5 
girls under the age of 3 vs. 1 boy.  Only 1 family had kids in the 8 - 20 
year old range (the founding family).  Then the owner of our potential site 
decided not to sell, and the group split in two as half the group wanted to 
buy a new site right away (under an acre for $1Million or so).  There is a 
scarcety (sp?) of land this close to the city.  I'm hoping to do infill coho 
now, but plans are most preliminary.

* Commonweal has a beautiful site in mind in the Southwest exurbs.  They 
have had trouble finding young families, and their site is stuck in a 
divorce war last I heard.

* Cambridge cohousing has just found a site, and they have a fair number of 
people.  They apparently suffer from the abundance of older singles as well, 
and they are searching hard for young families.

It's never easy.  Remember, building a coho community can be the most 
expensive (and / or most rewarding) personal growth seminar available.

Dave Adams
??? cohousing
Arlington, MA

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  |\/\/\/|  David G. Adams           |  Homebrewer
  |____  |  U4 Consulting            |  Cohousing Wannabe
 OO    ) |  Arlington, MA            | "I used to be indesicive,
 (       |  dadams [at] world.std.com     |  but now I'm not so sure"
  |      |  CompuServe: 72630,1374   |    -- Matt Johnson
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