Cohousing-L Mailing List: Others of us dream....

[Anne Drissel (100602.3043]

Attached is a slightly edited version of a response I sent to Mac Thomson last
week.  As a new participant in the CoHousing net, I (like Gail) was a bit taken
aback by the response to Mac and copied him on a message I sent to some non-net
colleagues.  Mac was most gracious and wise in a response to me and suggested I
go ahead and post my message to the whole group).  So... here goes!

---------- Forwarded Message ----------

From:   Anne Drissel, 100602,3043
        Mac Thomson, Internet:mac [at] happyvalley.com
DATE:   12/8/95 8:31 PM

RE:     Copy of: CoHousing politics re "The Market System"

Wow!  I'm really a neophite on this Internet Forum gigs!  Here's how some others
reacted to MacThomson (the message I sent ahead of this one).  Now I see why he
feels a bit sensitive!  Goes to show how naive I am! and how I've been coopted
as the years have gone by.  Guess I don't qualify for co-housing.  
        I agree that Disney-built co(opted)-housing is an appalling thought!
Almost beyond belief.  But why not?  I'm sure the places would be more
imaginative than the products of  most of the builders whose work I've seen
while criss-crossing this country!  I wonder why visionary builder/developers
like Jim Rouse aren't involved in this.  His efforts to restore urban
marketplaces have brought new vitality to many decayed urban centers.  His ideas
for the new town of Columbia, Maryland have left a reasonably decent city in its
wake.  I know the days of these big developments are over and developers are
looking around for something to do and make money from! I guess
co-housing is the new kid on the block!
        Back in the 70s,  I  tried to figure out how to convert an apartment
building in McLean, VA that friends of mine lived in into some kind of shared
living scene.  One couple lived in an 8-unit apartment building that had this
great open center foyer that would have been the perfect Great Room with a
kitchen added at the back. We didn't yet have the term "Co-Housing" for these
ideas.  We never pulled off our idea.  We just formed a non-geographic extended
family -- and all took care of each other's kids and helped with each other's
careers and life crises and ate at each others houses a lot. .  A decade later I
saw the same lifestyle opportunity and almost rented a house in Corrales, New
Mexico that was over a hundred years old with a similar design.  It was only one
story;  all the bedrooms, kitchen, etc. opened off a huge reception hall that
ran from front to back of the house.  It was fabulous.  I had this idea that a
bunch of us could rent the house together..... etc.  
        There seems to be an issue of desired scale of "community" here.  We 
have
a range of options from the individual home/apartment to the neighborhood to the
town, city, etc.  My sense is that CoHousing brings in a missing housing option
at the the micro level -- larger than the single family home;  smaller and more
deliberately designed than the neighborhood.  
        Some levels of community scale are better developed than others.  For
example, there's an upsurge of  "Retirement" communities which have a definite
appeal for older people who want some level of community and shared amenities.
If the one here in Annapolis, Maryland is anything like ones elsewhere, they
seem to evolve into quasi-affinity groups and quickly become so popular its
almost impossible to buy into -- houses are snatched up as fast as they come on
the market.  Jim Rouse built the "new town" of Columbia near here on a larger
scale  with neighborhoods grouped around neighborhood centers that provided
meals (restaurants!-- not group dining but a commercial version of that), day
care, recreation space, common pool, etc.  
        At another end of the scale, boarding houses and the old Single Room
Occupancy hotels with a low-budget dining room/cafeteria with a common room
filled this need in the past (and still do).  True, they were generally for the
poor folks and old folks but oddly enough, they probably had more "community"
going for them than the rest of us do.  A visit to almost any third-world town
or community finds most of the people sharing meals from street vendors and
talking and meeting in the open square til late into the night.
        I would hate to think that the co-housing concept is reserved to those
who are young, poor or at least not exactly wealthy, couples with kids, and
possessing a true, blue "liberal" anti-capitalistic credentials.  Must we be
excluded because we have been contaminated by the painful realities of surviving
on our own in this culture and have had to come to terms with our role in the
competitive market system? 
        I suspect there are groups of people out there like me who are real busy
folks and who are part of a natural afffinity network of  friends across the
country or globe who have money and successful careers but miss community.  Many
of us have formed far-flung communities of friends over the years but never
managed to get together in the same place -- yet kinda "what if" dream about it
when we get together....  We can't or don't want to stop what we're doing to
build our dream community.  But if it were there or someone offered to put it
together for us (at a price), the community might come together and buy it.
Such non-geographic communities of friends just might possibly be interested in
hooking up with a builder/developer who (god forbid) wants to make some money
and thus would do the detail work helping these people put their dream in place.
Kind of like a "group buying" program with special options available for
lifestyle opportunities.   
        I know bunches of career folks (globe-trotting, done with kids, too busy
to maintain a big house, need a place for their stuff, somebody to handle the
mail, a business center to work from when they're in town, somebody to sit by
the fire and chat with when they're home... etc.) who are out there keeping
their eyes open for something new to emerge..... and that can coexist with their
otherwise busy lives....
        [I mentioned to Mac that as a healthcare administrator I had helped
finance the purchase and operation of an old apartment building as a residential
rehabilitation center using Economic Development monies.  I know there are still
a few state psychiatric hospitals left to be closed down and sold.  Now it's the
rest of us who need "Asylum" from this crazy world!  And every time I see a
vacant motel I imagine the parking courtyard converted to a grande common room
for the residents, complete with glass dome and a stream running through it and
trees and plants growing everywhere!]                   
        So... I suspect, like me, there are many of dreamers watching and
thinking.... Thanks to you keepers of the net so we can keep our dreams
alive....

                ****    Anne Drissel, Annapolis, MD
                        100602.3043 [at] compuserve.com