Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: diversity/consensus

[Tony G. Rocco (tgr]

Dorothy said:

"If anyone would like to try a *really* diverse 
neighborhood, I can give
you some excellent suggestions.  Bring your own 
deadlock."
____________________________________

Why does diversity have to imply living in a 
crime-ridden slum amidst poverty, drug dealing, and 
drive-by shootings?

When I say diversity, I mean that once you find people 
who accept basic communitarian ideals, e.g., that 
people commit themselves to living together in a 
cooperative arrangement involving shared food, 
housing, cleaning, cooking, maintenance, and maybe 
certain common property, and that they actively 
participate in a democratic process of deciding issues 
and resolving conflicts, and accept the results of that 
democratic process, then you basically accept anyone 
who accepts those communitarian ideals without 
regard to age, race, gender, sexual orientation, 
religion, income, political affiliation, profession, 
lifestyle, diet, marital status, and so forth.

How does my idea of diversity in any way resemble 
neighborhoods where people are robbed and shot? I 
have nothing against keeping hooded klansmen, drug 
dealers, and rapists out of cohousing as out of the rest 
of civilized society.

It seems to me that bringing inclusiveness into 
cohousing is the best way to make cohousing and 
other communitarian modes of living more accessible 
to more people in American society. Americans of all 
stripes feel the alienation and loss of community 
endemic to contemporary urban and suburban living. 
To build a movement toward community nationwide, 
barriers need to be broken down, not built up, 
between communitarian believers and everybody 
else.

I hypothesize that the more esoteric and exclusive 
people try to make their cohousing communities, the 
more cohousing will be seen as just another weird 
left-wing phenomenon perpretrated by fringe types 
and radical malcontents. Cohousing could become a 
more powerful and widespread movement if it tried 
to be more inclusive.

- Tony