Cohousing-L Mailing List: Amateurs in the Werks

[John Major (jmajor]

Reading the latest batch of messages to CoHousing-L, I'm struck by all these
amateurs digging into this complex process of real estate development, myself
included. I'm terribly grateful to the professionals that we have worked with
for their creativity and expertise, but I like to think that they are learning
something from us "CoHopis" as well. Certainly the design solutions we are
coming up with are the better for the synergy between our professionals and
our group.

Now, back when we all lived in "traditional" cultures, it was probably called
"building your home", and Alexander's "Timeless Way of Building" makes it
clear that, until quite recently, the folks who live and work in buildings
usually had a large say in how they were shaped. So CoHousing, by
participating smack in the middle of mainstream real estate development, may
be having more of a freshening effect that we anticipate. 

It is so hard for us amateurs sometimes, putting together the rezoning
applications, the Condo CC&Rs, hashing out drainage patterns, and so forth,
but it is a little step in making some part of industrial culture more humane
- reclaiming a small piece of the human picture from the sole domain of the
"expert". The housing we build is no longer a "commodity", it is loved
passionately before it ever goes on the market. We should pat ourselves on the
back for that.

Just a thought from a tired but happy CoHoHeaveHo - 

John Major
Wasatch CoHousing
jmajor [at] dayna.com