Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: optimum size for a community

[Howard Landman (howard]

> Is there any list wisdom that suggests the optimum size of a cohousing 
> community? I can think that too few would make for too much work for 
> everyone involved, yet too many would lose the ability to make consensual 
> group decisions, or even interfere with a town hall type of decision 
> process.

Some folks have opined that the optimum size for consensus is 9 or fewer
households.  I've heard proposals as small as 4 or 5.

A Pattern Language has an analysis that suggests the optimum size in order
to assure a reasonable probability that all children have playmates of
roughly their own age is over 100 units.

So I suppose an argument can be made for any size in that range.  I have
often thought that the ideal situation might be a chain or cluster of
semi-independent cohousing groups.  Each could make most of its own
decisions, but there'd perhaps be some kind of central facility for
large events, and kids could freely travel throughout the cluster
(not sliced up by vehicle roads with traffic).

        Howard A. Landman

        River Rock Commons
        Fort Collins, CO
        www.riverrock.org
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