Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: new urbanism and cohousing

[Scott Cowley (scowley]

Paul Barton's acute observation that "Built Consciousness" can be lost to 
attrition is very 
important.   I think that the initial consciousness can be turned into a group 
ethic by 1) creating 
new traditions and celebrations, 2) good introductory education for newcomers, 
including accurate 
recording of decisions made and values behind the built community,  3) a fair 
and accurate 
rendering of the group's history into its new mythology... good storytelling.
        I challenge everyone, Paul included, to come up with effective ideas 
for implementing these.

Paul's notion that we have what we want is absurd.  I can drive my car 80 mph 
through a school 
cross walk right now and, if I have enough money, I can actually get away with 
it.  This is not 
what I want, and it is not social accountability, which I do want.  Behind this 
assertion is the
naivete that this is truly a society which democratically reflects the wishes 
of  the "People".  
What worn-out capitalist apologetics.

>I'm not an architect, but this a licentious description of the
>trade. Most architects are utterly frustrated with the gaudy desires
>of their clients. Those housing developments that embody the worst of
>housing design don't look that way because an architect thought it was
>the right thing to do to permanize his or her ego. It looks that way
>because there is a belief about what people want, in addition to the
>many compromises brokered between architects and developers. Take a
>look at a magazine like Fine Homebuilding, and in addition to houses
>built by people with a lot more money than most of us, you'll see the
>often wonderful results of architects working with clients and
>actually using aesthetics grounded in people's real experience instead
>of some fictitious idea of what the market wants, an idea supported
>mostly by land developers, not architects.

Mostly... I see the results of houses designed by architects who build for 
people with a lot more 
money than most of us.  But we certainly will continue to welcome _ any_ 
efforts by architects to 
actually work for us.

As far as ad infinitim "Barn Raisings", I think that cohousing does in fact 
represent an advance on 
the utopian front in that it incorporates the aforementioned components.  Time 
will tell how 
long-lived we are.  But when did history, much less any particular life, offer 
any guarantees ?
We have "good social/architectural/ecological/economic design" and that means 
the flexibility to 
adapt, unlike the restrictive, often religious communities of the past.  We 
will survive.