Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: self-sufficient community

[Cornelius Perkins (ccp2]

Jessica Shaten (jessica [at] gopher.ccbr.umn.edu) suggests the creation of
a semi-self-sufficient village:


>William Thornton raised a couple of issues that are dear to my 
>heart...namely, the prospect of creating a **village** that minimizes its 
>dependence on [the] system of industrialized interdependence ...

And she asks:


>But is there anyone else out there interested in this idea of 
>village self-sufficiency and long-term sustainability?  It is not 
>really a co-housing issue per-se (or doesn't need to be), 

Yes.  But I think that it necessarily _is_ a cohousing issue, if I
understand the definition of cohousing correctly.  I don't see a 
viable way to create a village any other way than by dweller-development.
It'd just be a _big_ cohousing effort.  Instead of thirty families, you'd
have three hundred families.  Other than scale, the other significant
difference is the degree of complexity of the interaction/interdependence
between the community members.  

In a small community, there's less room for the give-and-take of a truly
free market, and too much interdependence to be calm about a neighbor
going out of business.  So now, instead of just making sure that your 
co-community members are responsible citizens :), you also have to deal 
with whether there's enough-or-too-many of a given profession.

I'm not saying that this effort wouldn't work.  I'm very interested in
the idea.   I'm personally concerned that, with only 20 (or so) 
cohousing ventures on this continent, there may not be enough collective
experience to go to another level.

Neil
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