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

[Tree Bressen (tree]

Hi,

Rob wrote:
>  I am wondering if cohousing development is past its peak and slowly down. I
> rarely hear of forming groups in WA anymore, at one time there seemed to be
> a lot of action and now it seems pretty slow. Maybe in the Seattle area,
> there is market saturation?  78 built communities, which lets say average 40
> people makes cohousing a dominant part of the intentional Communities
> movement in terms of numbers of people in community. But it seems like we
> went from zero to 60 in less than a decade and we have only added another 18
> since then.

I haven't taken a close look at the data, but i too have the impression 
that it's slowed down.  I think the early adopters have built a bunch of 
cohousing communities and now it's taking longer for it to spread beyond 
the first round of places.

Given the recent conversations on polarization i sincerely hope i will not 
offend anyone with what i'm about to say next, but basically it looks to me 
like the bulk of cohousing communities so far have been built in towns with 
a critical mass of, uh, liberals, or cultural creatives, or UU's & Quakers 
who shop at natural food stores, or whatever else you want to call this 
group that so far has provided not all, but a significant driving portion 
of, people who do this crazy thing called starting a cohousing 
community.  Of course there are exceptions, but the bulk of cohousing 
communities are located in places like Boston, Seattle, Ann Arbor, Boulder, 
and especially of course the San Francisco Bay Area.

I think the future growth of the movement will depend on a number of 
factors that we can choose to affect:

1. Our ability to connect with people who perhaps don't share all the 
assumptions of that culture who can still see the benefits of 
community.  There are many alliances waiting to be cultivated across the 
old political lines; for example, people on the "Left" and "Right" can 
probably agree that it would be good for families to have more time 
together, and that's a community-building-type issue.  This is the kind of 
approach already used successfully by the cohousing movement when it uses 
slogans such as, "An old-fashioned neighborhood in a new-fashioned way."

2. The spread of some traditionally "lefty" thinking throughout the wider 
culture, so that places created as a result of a certain ideology cease to 
seem so weird.  For example, witness the incredible growth of the organic 
foods movement, to the rather unfortunate point where almost all the 
organic food companies have been bought up by large multinational 
corporations.  While the spread of some lefty ideas would require careful 
strategizing, i believe others will happen through the natural course of 
events--i'm particularly thinking here that environmentalism is already 
poised to stop being a lefty special interest issue and start being 
everybody's concern.

3. We have got to breach the gap around economic access.  The US needs a 
whole bunch, i mean thousands of units, of affordable cohousing.  It's both 
a moral and a practical issue, in my opinion.  I think getting those units 
built is going to take creating relationships across class lines so that 
people with economic privilege leverage their resources while people with 
less money also take responsibility for empowering themselves.  (Not to be 
tooting my own community's horn, but i do think our community revolving 
loan fund is a good example of this kind of linkage for mutual benefit--in 
short, our limited equity co-op was able to buy our house because 20 
friends lent us the money.)  I honor the cohousers who have already done 
fantastic work on this issue and, we need to go a lot farther.

On a different topic that arose from this same thread, Sharon wrote:
> 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.

When it comes to discussions of '60s-era communes, Twin Oaks in Virginia 
provides an interesting example because it's the largest community left 
from that wave that still shares income (in other words, it's one of the 
few places that still operates similarly to how many communities of that 
time operated).  Twin Oaks is currently full at about 100 people, with a 
waiting list.  The adult members' average age has risen every year since 
their founding in 1967, and is now in the 40s.  Currently they don't allow 
new adults to join over age 54, because they realize they are in danger of 
getting out of balance and not being able to support their population.

While there are some people in their 20s at Twin Oaks and the other 
income-sharing communities, i think more of the younger set of 
community-inclined folks are either at ecovillages like Dancing Rabbit & 
Earthaven if they are rurally inclined, or in group houses in liberal 
cities and college towns if they are "urbanly" inclined.  And yes, having 
cohousing be an option for these younger folks is part of why i say we need 
thousands of units of affordable cohousing in #3 above, whether that 
affordability comes in the form of rentals or of mortgages under $100,000.

Cheers,

--Tree



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Tree Bressen
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