Cohousing-L Mailing List: Evolution of Cohousing Communities?

[Jasmine Gold (juturna]

Can any longtime cohousers and cohousing researchers comment on whether
the amount of community activity stays about the same in a cohousing
community or lessens over time?

This question is prompted by my family's (myself, husband, and 4 year
old son) visit over Labor Day weekend to one of the older cohousing
communities. There was a home for sale and we were visiting to check out
the community, the home and the town. The community has approximately 30
homes: some rented and some with extra units that are rented. We saw
very little evidence of community and our experience did not fit with my
expectations of life in a cohousing community. I couldn't tell whether
it has always been this way or whether it has lessened over time or
whether it was simply because of the Labor Day weekend. Thus, my
question.

We arrived just in time for the common house dinner on Thursday (one of
two per week) which didn't seem to be very well attended. We spoke to a
few people who were sitting at our table. After dinner the person I had
been corresponding with over e-mail came over for a few minutes. All of
the tables except ours left after about 45 minutes. We left soon after
because our soon was getting bored. Although there are a few kids in the
community (around 5-7? I never found anyone to give me an exact count),
the only one we saw was a 2-year old early Friday morning. We spent some
late afternoons playing cards and ate Sunday lunch in front of the
common house. We rarely saw anyone, all we ever got was a hello or a
very brief conversation (other than the person who was renting us her
studio for the weekend). Sometimes our hello was ignored. The place
seemed very quiet and we didn't notice any spontaneous gatherings. There
had recently been a second home for sale and some people we talked too
didn't know it had been sold and moved into (by renters from the other
home that was for sale). As far as I can tell, nobody cared who the
homes were sold or rented too.

--Jasmine Gold