Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Demographics/Household Composition Survey

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

Several folks have addressed me individually as to whether I included any
other demographic info in my "survey," especially race/ethnicity. Since
others may be interested in this as well, I will share my response to one
of these inquirers:

"What you see is what you get <smile>. I put this little "questionnaire" on
coho-l a long time ago because I was interested in the different shapes of
families/households who live in cohousing. This is hardly seriously
demographics, and it was not trying to be. It is just one little piece  of
the process of looking at ourselves as members of the greater cohouinsing
"community."

Like you, I am also interested in seeing how diverse we are (or are not) in
regard to race, ethnicity, political orientation, and class background, so
let's keep talking about these issues. And doing demographic surveys from
time to time as well.

I am also interested in certain issues rarely, if ever mentioned.  For
example, what percentage of our households' incomes go to housing, daily
living necessities (such as food, clothing, transportation, insurance,
health care), education, luxuries, savings, investments, philanthropy. I
guess that the reason this money stuff has come to my attention, is that
when you live in cohousing and know your neighbors so much better than you
do in a typical non-cohousing neighborhood, you learn a lot more than you
would typically know about how other households deal with money, just like
you know more about other aspects of their lives."

Joani Blank
Doyle St CoHousing and Old Oakland CoHousing