Cohousing-L Mailing List: looking for "manuals"

[George Dillmann (gdillman]

Hi folks:

I've just joined this listserv within the last few days and am enjoying it
thoroughly!  I'm a graduate student in Sociology at Iowa State U., and am
wanting to research the participatory planning process of a cohousing
community--I'm especially interested in the process by which some community
has developed their "by-laws", so to speak, about social relations in the
community.  By chance does anyone know of (or perhaps belong to) a community
that is at least well into it's planning stages (need not have been
constructed or even broken ground yet) that has significant written
documentation of their overall planning process?  If by chance a "how-to"
manual has been put together by this group for use of other just-forming
groups, that would be ideal!  But it needn't be in book form.  Any
written records that document the participatory research process of the
group would be great (it's fine if these records also discuss the physical
design ofthe community, although I am primarily interested in social
relations among the members).

What would be even more exciting (I might as well go for it all here!) would
be if any of you from the Westwood community in Asheville, NC would have
documentation for your group, as I have good friends who have just moved to
nearby Black Mountain, NC and my spouse and I am coming to visit them this
next weekend (Feb. 3 & 4).  I would love to meet one of you from this
community (if by chance you had records for me, I could just pick them up
then) when I'm in NC.

Please don't let this last paragraph discourage any folks from other
communities from responding!  I'm under time pressure as this is a class
assignment, so the sooner I can hear from anyone, the better.

By the way, this is not just an academic pursuit--my spouse and I are very
seriously thinking about joining an intentional community at some point, and
we are especially attracted to the cohousing concept (we do need for me to
finish school, and to get out of student loan debt first, though).

Thanks everyone for your patience in reading this long request!

George Dillmann
215 N. Franklin Ave.
Ames, IA 50014
<gdillman [at] iastate.edu>