Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: design review

[Howard Landman (howard]

> Lack of storage is a problem.

We have that problem too.  Pattern Language recommends 15% storage,
but the (in)voluntary simplicity folks wanted less.  Some of my house
customizations were to put more closet space back in.  But the too-tiny
garages really don't have room to store much of anything and still park
a car.  There's something in our covenants about it not being legal to get
a garage and not park a car in it, but some people are already doing that.

> Meanwhile the community has summer tires, a half-dozen pickaxes, and
> twenty bikes to get out of the weather.

We still haven't solved our bike storage either, even though it's been raised
at every major landscaping workshop and numerous times in email.

And remember that during the first couple of years, you may need storage
for construction materials!  We still have a "workshop" that needs to be
built.

> Pete Seeger's "Little Boxes"

Malvina Reynolds (1900-1978) wrote that song.  It was about Daly City, a bit
south of San Francisco.  See www.sisterschoice.com/malvinamain.html or
staff.jsr.cc.va.us/dmaxwell/eng111/malvina.html for biographic details.

Pete's a good folksinger, but he sometimes "cleaned up" songs for the public.
For example, it's his doing that most 1960's versions of Woody Guthrie's
"This Land Is Your Land" omit the 3rd verse.  Most people didn't even know
that verse existed until Bruce Springsteen restored it in his version.

> and I don't buy the "there was no year
> zero, so _next_ year is the last of the millenium" argument,

I find it interesting that Robert Heinlein predicted people would get
confused about which year ended the century and the millenium, over 50
years ago!  I think it was in "Beyond This Horizon" (1948), but it's been
a few decades since I read it ... anyway it was enough to give me severe
dela vu when it really started happening.  Kind of hilarious, actually,
since I thought this issue through when I read the book, in the 1960's,
as a teenager, and haven't had to fret about it since except to wonder
why everyone else seems to find it so confusing.

My biggest problem with cohousing this month is that I'm trying to diet
and we keep having all these huge community meals.  :-)

        Howard Landman
        River Rock Cohousing, Ft. Collins CO