Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Site design - is a 'street' necessary?

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

On Wed, 25 Mar 1998, RodLambert wrote:

> I'm new to the list, hope this subject isn't redundant.
I think it is a great topic.

> How important is a sense of a street outside the door? 
I have a favorite theory that good "sight lines" considerable facilitate
unplanned contacts - often very minimal contacts amongst neighbors.
By "sight lines" I simply mean the ability to "see" your neighbors
- typically coming and going - often enough to be able to easily say hi
and start a conversation if mutually desired which is communicated
by subtle means most often.

The lack of these sight lines is one of the drawbacks to my neighborhood
which I hope will evolve toward something cohousing-like.

Being an amateur radio operator and sort of a techy I continue to ponder
possibilities for "virtual" sight lines but so far the "intrusive"
and "big brother" feel of anything I've contemplated has been a major
major hurdle.  Even tho I think there must be ways which are neither 
of these things and offer all parties enough control to protect
privacy and still work.  Having the network infrastructure
(read conduit) installed that I dream of would  make it much more 
feasible at least theoretically.

Homewood Cohousing      http://freenet.msp.mn.us/housing/cohousing
(web pages now have a few images and some other new material)

Fred

Personal note.
My recent network problems resulted in the loss of my
copies of email I have sent since the first of the year.  If you 
have recieved something noteworthy from me this year and have a copy
please forward me a copy.   (If in doubt about noteworthness, send it.)

Also I lost messages recieved in the period between 3/9 and 3/15.  
Or if you sent me anything in this period, please send a second copy if
you can.

Note that this does not include anything distributed over cohousing-L
whose archives are safe.

If you have a list related (or whatever) request pending from me,
please ask again.

Thanks, 
Fred,  Cohousing-L list manager

--
WHO WAS offline 3/13-3/21/98 due to a hardware problem   I'm 
..      trying to catch up - feel free to email again if needed
Fred H. Olson  fholson [at] cohousing.org    Minneapolis,MN   55411  
(612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM          List manager of:
Cohousing-L  See www.cohousing.org        and      nbhd-tc  the
Twin Cities Neighborhood issues list. See www.freenet.msp.mn.us