Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing development slowing down?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Feb 20, 2005, at 12:30 AM, Joani Blank wrote:

> But I believe that very few cohousers got here because they were 
> looking for an intentional community, and found this particular 
> version of community suiting their needs.   Which is why I prefer to 
> use the term intentional neighborhood to describe cohousing.

I like the term intentional neighborhood, and agree with your point 
that few cohousers got where they are today because they had any 
interest in the intentional communities movement as they were aware of 
it. They would have run the other way if a cohousing group had 
announced a meeting to form an intentional community. But using the 
broader definition of community would also be to the advantage of the 
intentional communities movement. People want different levels of 
community at different stages of their lives. The intentional 
communities of the 1960s were heavily populated with people in their 
20s. The average adult age is probably closer to 45 in cohousing. There 
are lots of children but the 20 somethings are off doing something 
else, I think.

> There's going to be a big article about cohousing in the AARP magazine 
> very soon. It is being written by Barry Yeoman, a nationally 
> recognized and award-winning investigative journalist who is also a 
> contributing editor to the AARP magazine. That publication goes to 3 
> million readers! And I expect we'll have a huge flood of inquiries 
> after it comes out. (People who responded to the AARP newsletter 
> article on elder cohousing a couple of months ago were probably 
> disappointed to find that there are only two all-elder communities, 
> one in early development, and one that isn't on The  Cohousing 
> Association's communities list so I'm not even sure that they consider 
> themselves cohousing--as we define it).

One of the reasons the AARP audience is so ripe for cohousing is that 
they are looking for changes and have the freedom to pursue them. 
Cohousing is dependent on people who are ready to move but who can 
delay that move until the cohousing infrastructure is built. Even if 
you are doing retrofit, there is a period when there is no place to 
live. People typically move into cohousing from someplace else. 50+ is 
the age when many, many people are free to begin thinking about doing 
this.

That's one reason why I have encouraged forming groups to use this list 
to look for new members. People who are looking for a community will 
move to one they like. And they may be just coming home -- back to an 
area they once lived but jobs have taken them elsewhere.

Sharon
---
Sharon Villines, Editor and Publisher
Building Community: A Newsletter on Coops, Condos, Cohousing, and Other 
New Neighborhoods
http://www.buildingcommunitynews.org