Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: INCREDIBLE East Bay Express article on coho

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Thank you Raines!!  Esp. for the editorial intros to the various quoted
pieces from the article.

Maybe we have come of age...

Ann Zabaldo

Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC. -- America's
Hometown!
zabaldo [at] earthlink.net

----- Original Message -----
From: "Raines Cohen" <raines-coho-L [at] raines.com>
To: <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2001 12:00 PM
Subject: [C-L]_INCREDIBLE East Bay Express article on coho


> http://www.eastbayexpress.com/
>
> (or free at corner bins throughout the Berkeley-Oakland [CA] area for the
> next week; everybody in the area should pick up a bunch, as I think this
> one's a great tool for explaining what we're all about)
>
> Cover story:
> Community Under Construction
> The triumphs and trials of the cohousing movement
> By Elizabeth Hollander
>
> [it takes up SIX FULL PAGES in the newspaper with many pictures, so I'll
> include just some excerpts and highlights here]
>
> Very balanced... centered around "local couple makes good" with Chuck &
> Katie + history, noting that there's more coho here than anywhere else
> (in Oakland alone 2 built communities, 2 retrofit; 2 other built comm
> within a mile, plus CHC and Karen Hester's Cohousing Consultants),
> getting into the evolution of the movement, quotes from many in local
> communities including a former member. The reporter attended the
> conference and visited several common dinners and at least one meeting of
> a group in formation, plus phone interviews.
>
> The lead paragraph:
> >When Katie McCamant and Chuck Durrett literally wrote the book on
> >cohousing, they weren't trying to start a revolution. "It was just the
way
> >we wanted to live," says McCamant with a modest, almost incredulous,
> >laugh. "It was an idea that made sense to us personally." But, now, ten
> >years after the first American cohousing community opened its doors,
> >McCamant and Durrett's landmark book has set the standard for over 55
> >village-like developments across the country. Last month, the movement
> >came home to the East Bay for its anniversary conference, an event that
> >attracted not only three hundred participants but a considerable buzz.
>
> One theme is the variety:
> >When it included the word "cohousing" in its 2000 edition -- for the
> >movement, a sure sign of having arrived -- the American Heritage
> >Dictionary defined it as "a living arrangement that combines private
> >living quarters with common dining and activity areas in a community
whose
> >residents share in tasks such as childcare." But what you see when you
> >walk into a cohousing community may vary from place to place -- even
> >within Oakland.
>
> It's always good to see someone 'get it right' re TCN's independence, and
> turn to the Network for the big-picture perspective:
> >Last month's conference, organized by the nonprofit Cohousing Network --
a
> >group that is independent of McCamant and Durrett -- certainly dramatized
> >the movement's momentum. Cosponsored by UC Berkeley's College of
> >Environmental Design, the conference attracted private and nonprofit
> >developers interested in offering the same kinds of services as McCamant
> >and Durrett's Cohousing Company, and an international collection of
> >individuals interested in everything from their first taste of cohousing
> >to new financing models for low-income cohousing. "In the last couple of
> >years, the number of complete communities has doubled, and so the
> >visibility we have is at a new level," says Cohousing Network Executive
> >Director Zev Paiss. "My expectation is that cohousing will continue to
> >grow. There's a lot of people who are saying, 'We've been living in the
> >suburbs for so many years, and it doesn't fulfill us.' Now that we have
so
> >many cohousing communities built, people can start to walk though them
and
> >they realize, 'This is not what I thought it was -- I could live here.'"
>
> as well as the critical-mass aspect:
> >With over fifty cohousing communities up and running around the country,
> >cohousers agree that their movement has reached a critical mass, a
turning
> >point. Durrett points out that Denmark built 20 cohousing developments in
> >the first ten years, and 250 in the next decade; that projection would
> >bring over 500 cohousing communities to the US by 2020.
>
> And, with Joani's help, we get the "you have your own kitchen" and "it's
> not a commune" FAQ's out of the way:
> >"You will do the cohousing movement a huge favor by not using the word
> >'communal,'" begs Swan's Market resident Joani Blank. "Say we have
> >'common' meals. That's the one thing that really freaks people out about
> >cohousing -- they can be sitting in your kitchen in your private
residence
> >and ask, 'Do you have your own kitchen?' It really pushes people's
> >intimacy buttons." She adds, "We're neighbors. We're a neighborhood. I
> >don't use the word 'intentional community' -- our intention is to live
> >much closer to our neighbors than is common. We don't share an
ideology --
> >except for that. That's why you can't start cohousing with ten households
> >that are all your friends -- a neighborhood is not like that."
>
> and retrofit is fully represented, which I'm glad to see. And
> community-building. Developing groups. The "Honeymoon-is-over" phase.
> Kids issues. The amount of work going into the process. The amount of
> time it can take. The consensus process. Green Building. Church-based
> cohousing. "Get together with friends" cohousing. The development
> process. Communities include: Pleasant Hill, Cotati (Southern Sonoma
> coho), Swan's Market, Doyle Street, Sacramento Street, Temescal Creek,
> Temescal coho, with references to Muir Commons.
>
> Plus some perspective on building community, including a favorite slogan:
> >For the Cohousing Networks Zev Paiss, the fact that for most communities
> >these planning stages run relatively smoothly, is one of the movements
> >great achievements of the past ten years. We know how to build buildings,
> >but how to live in a community is something we all need to relearn, he
> >says. Everyone says they want diversity, but learning to deal with
> >idiosyncrasies and quirks is not something were taught to do in this
> >culture. Cohousing is the longest and most expensive personal growth
> >workshop you will ever take. Its very much a growth experience.
>
> I like this quote from the "dealing with difficult members" session at
> the conference:
> > "I see every difficult person as a lesson. I had expectations of what a
> >community is, and I realize now, this is what a neighborhood is:
> >acceptance, tolerance, compassion."
>
> And it's only mildly disquieting to see this quote from Chuck near a
> picture of common dinner prep:
> > In a small town, people are highly accountable for their behavior --
that
> >it's a safe place to be even if there is a creep in your community. Do
you
> >realize Jeffrey Dahmer killed and ate seventeen people in his apartment
> >before anyone noticed? That's what happens in an anonymous society."
>
> [hmmm, I can't find any threads on cannibalism at common dinners in the
> archives... anyone have advice on this topic? Should it be
> cross-referenced under "dealing with problem members"? ;-)]
>
> I think it's great that the article has the perspective of a former
> cohouser, and we should make sure that the network is learning from them
> in order to help people make the best decisions about whether cohousing
> is right for them:
>
> >Cohousing certainly has its discontents. Joan Braun was one of the
> >founding members of Doyle Street; she moved out in 1999. For her, a key
> >disappointment was the continual process of reshaping the community as
> >founding households were replaced by new tenants. "I just wasn't ready to
> >build community again over specific issues," she says. "You'd find
> >yourself going over the same territory.
> >
> >"Consensus is a messy project, and it very seldom flows well. It did have
> >a dark side. I think there were times that people felt pressured into
> >consenting to something, and they would have stood a firmer line if they
> >didn't feel compelled to be a good neighbor. And conversely, people
> >invested more sometimes than [issues warranted] because they had
something
> >personal about being validated. The personal became very closely aligned
> >with the political. Sometimes people would make long impassioned
speeches,
> >but then say, 'But it's okay with me.' So why did we listen to them for
> >twenty minutes?"
> >
> >Braun still says cohousing was a wonderful experience that she would
> >"never have not done." But ultimately, for her, it came down to a
question
> >of just how much community a person really wants out of life. "There are
> >differing levels for how much individuals want to feel joined. It was
> >clear to me from the first day that I was holding down one end of the
> >spectrum -- and after a while, I was tired of holding down that end of
the
> >spectrum. And as we changed, the balance between those who wanted more
and
> >those who wanted less also changed. It was going towards being slightly
> >more than I felt comfortable with. You felt bad if you didn't show up for
> >dinner, because everybody else did. You start not doing things that you
> >would otherwise do. You are aware that you haven't showed up for
something
> >-- you think, If I were doing this right, I would go."
>
> And, of course, the "D" word: Diversity:
> >Cohousing now is a mostly a white, middle-class movement -- although
> >cohousers like to point to the high concentration of immigrants that
> >diversify their communities, and they also note that most cohousing
> >communities contain a greater diversity of household incomes than
> >traditional suburban developments. "To a certain extent, the white middle
> >class needs an injection of community more," says McCamant. "We've done
> >the best at destroying it, and therefore have a stronger desire for it."
> >But she and Durrett are also committed to bringing cohousing concepts to
> >nonprofit developments. They've already designed a single-room-occupancy
> >hotel in San Francisco where formerly homeless residents cook meals for
> >one another and manage their own building; other current projects include
> >a community for single moms on welfare, where shared meals and childcare
> >leave time for homework. "We have quite a number of projects on the
boards
> >right now where nonprofit developers have come to us and said, 'We can't
> >do cohousing for this reason or that reason, but we want community in our
> >project,'" says Durrett. "'We want there to be a viable social experience
> >in our 41-unit project. We don't want to just warehouse people.'"
> >
> >"One could argue we needed to prove it works first, and I think we've
sort
> >of done that," adds McCamant. "Now we've got a base to build on; we know
> >this works; now maybe we can have better luck pushing into other places.
> >That's what I'd like to see happen over the next ten years."
> >
> >In the end, McCamant and Durrett say, it's less important how much
> >cohousing is built than how far the terms of the debate are shifted.
> >Innovation is hard to achieve in city planning, the two say, because
> >consumers aren't even given choices to advocate for. "As a consumer,
> >you're looking at this from the perspective of what you know," McCamant
> >says. "But when you're looking at a site plan, you can say, yes, we can
do
> >it that way, or we can do it this other way, and what does it give you
> >this way? Over and over again I've seen people do 180-degree turns on
what
> >they thought was important when they hear other people and really see the
> >impacts and begin to understand how one thing affects another. It takes
> >time. When you're doing something that hasn't been done before, or you
> >want to push the limits, it takes time." [END]
>
>
> Raines Cohen <coho-L [at] raines.com> <http://www.swansway.com/>
> Putting together a cohousing booth for the Solano Stroll.
>
>   Vice President, Swan's Market Cohousing [Old Oakland, CA]
> Cooking gazpacho for common dinner tonight AND hosting an overlapping
> event.
>
>   Member, East Bay Cohousing [no site yet] <http://www.ebcoho.org/>
> Which had a nice social/orientation Sunday and will have another in Sept.
>
>   Boardmember, The Cohousing Network <http://www.cohousing.org/>
> Still following up on loose ends from the conference.
>
>
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