Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: German / European Cohousing

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

A message came my way today that included:

> Tuesday, 9 May 2000
> Potsdam Germany
> 
> We just moved to the Potsdam/Berlin area and we would be most
> interested to know if there are any cohousing communities in this part
> of Germany. Alternatively, have you heard of any interest in the
> Berlin area towards starting such a community?

Unfortunately I do not have any information about cohousing in Germany.

Does anyone have contacts for organizations, individual communities, or
knowledgeable individuals about German / European cohousing? The list of
Cohousing Communities / groups - Indexed by Country and State at
http://www.cohousing.org/groups.html does have some European contacts but
it seems rather sparse.  Cohousing contacts anywhere in the world would be
of interest of course.

Send community / group updates to cohousing [at] umich.edu

Last year when some us of toured Danish cohousing we found some
difficulaty making contact with communities.  Of course this relates to
the question of how communities can keep contact with the public to a
reasonable level which has been discussed here previously.  As one who
feels the need to promote the ideas of community building / cohousing I
hope most communities feel some obligation to spread the idea and allow
themselves to be toured within reason.

Which reminds me, is there a tour of cohousing in the Netherlands being
planned this year?  Tho I won't be going I hope to hear about it?

Recently Kathryn McCamant and Chuck Durrett, the authors of the book
_Cohousing_ that brought the idea to the US in 1988 wrote in a review
article  (page 61 Communities Magazine Spring 2000 #106 see www.ic.org )
  
   Ideas from cohousing have filtered into Danish society; for 
   example ... . However, in contrast to North America, Danish 
   cohousers haven't seen themselves as a movement and there is 
   little communication between communities.

Fred

--
Fred H. Olson  fholson [at] cohousing.org    Minneapolis,MN   55411
(612)588-9532  Amateur radio: WB0YQM          List manager of:
Cohousing-L and Nbhd-tc (Twin Cities Neighborhood issues list)
More info:   http://www.mtn.org/~fholson/sig-detail.htm