Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Celebration: Coho in the mainstream?

[DebFlint (DebFlint]

Commenting on an article in the economist Steve Farley wrote:

>Sound like an article about Cohousing? These words certainly >touch on some
>of our basic tenets, but the story is not about cohousing.

>It is about the new town of Celebration, Florida, a community >which aims
>to grow to a population of 20,000 in the next 20 years, developed >by the
>Walt Disney Development Corporation!

>Yes, this excites me not because I would want to live there--....

>It excites me because it seems to mean that many of our >ideas are clearly
>mainstream now.

Don't get to excited.  I work in the Yakima Valley in WA state.  Many people
here, as everywhere, are crying out for communities based on the concepts and
values that CoHousing seeks to create. Unfortunately, for many white members
of the community (and many established members of the Hispanic community)
this means kicking the Hispanic migrant workers out of their neighborhoods by
force.  (CA's Proposition - 187 may very likely come here.)

Two points:  First, CoHousing does not have the corner on how to make good,
life giving communities, it is a method to achieve them.  Second, I would be
extremely skeptical of Disney's intentions and the results of their efforts.

A few years ago I saw a news story about how Disney was making deals with the
counties they owned land in to suspend the counties jurisdiction and
basically make the Board of Directors of the Disney Corp. the governing body
of large portions of Florida.  The people who live on that land had no right
and Democracy was suspended for them.   Part of the result of this
arrangement was the ability of Disney to "legally" pollute the everglades on
and near their property.

Paul Hawken in his book "the Ecology of Commerce" describes how, around the
time of the Civil War, corporations went from existing solely for the good of
society to having legal rights equal or greater to individuals.  Seems the
most successful civil rights movement was for the corporation.  

Are "Disney towns" the wave of the future.  I pray that they are not.   

CoHousing will not create better communities on a large scale when it is
co-opted by main stream corporate interest, as grassroots politics have been.
 CoHousing  will do so if and when it makes the need for many of those
corporations obsolete.  When we no longer need Disney videos to entertain and
mesmerize our children because we and our neighbors the time and energy to
teach and foster creativity in our children.

Bryan, of Bryan and Debbie.