Cohousing-L Mailing List: Mission and long lasting community

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

What Jan Ankey wrote:  our community will have no community-wide shared
values other than that of
protecting our investment, is one of the prime arguments critics of
cohousing as a community form bring up. If there is no commitment to
relationship, only to economic value, then there is unlikely the ability to
create a long lasting intentional Community. Yes, the buildings will last,
but your identity will change,  from intentional, relationship organized
housing, to non-intentional housing.

I have heard this argument several times from people in the communities
movement, who are critics of cohousing, that the affluence of cohousing home
ownership will eventually cause cohousing to become just another condo, as
the community interested founders are replaced by those who pay high prices
for real estate, and have much less interest, if any, in relationship
building.

This was even projected at one gathering I attended to be a thirty year
process. That at the end of thirty years, EVERY cohousing group that reached
that milestone would no longer identify themselves as a community. It was
predicted that by the third generation of owners of any unit, the interest
and intention to be social with the neighbors would be very low.

Of course, this was just speculation, tied up with some fancy language and
presented as a question, can cohousing last?  It is still an interesting
question. One would expect that if this thesis were correct, that the older
cohousing groups would  have somewhere around 1/3 of the homes occupied by
people disinterested in community. That has not been the case in my
community, and I am not sure it is the case of the other older cohousing
group in my area.

My thesis is that the community system self selects and reinforces itself
independent of income levels. If there is vibrant community going on, if
there are systems of community work and connection  happening, that the
existence of such activity would self select for those that wanted that
environment. Thus, the first several years of community will indicate the
future success  or failure as a intentional social environment. So, to give
a specific example, if you do not have success getting community meals
going, and they die out in the first 3-5 years, then it is unlikely that new
people moving in will get them going. The new people are selected by the
fact there are no community meals and this is what they want. If they really
wanted to live in a place with community meals, they would choose somewhere
else. It goes the other way as well, if you have a vibrant meals program,
those that choose to live there are most likely to do so because you have
meals, and they want to be involved, thus they move there.

So, if you are considering moving because the community mission is: our
community will have no community-wide shared values other than that of
protecting our investment, then you are making that change happen by moving
elsewhere. Over time, all the people who find this mission untenable will
move also, and be replaced by those who want that mission, and thus the
community will change into that particular aspect over time.

This is why I always have said: What you actually DO together, is way more
important than what it SAYS you are suppose to be doing in your mission. Pay
attention to what you DO, and create actions that DO the things you want to
happen. Then if you really want to write a mission statement, base it on
what you actually DO, not what you think you are supposed to.

Rob Sandelin
Sky Valley Environments  <http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm>
Field skills training for student naturalists
Floriferous [at] msn.com


---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.332 / Virus Database: 186 - Release Date: 3/6/02

_______________________________________________
Cohousing-L mailing list
Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org  Unsubscribe  and other info:
http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L