Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re: more perspective on construction phase versus live in phase

[Bonnie Fergusson (fergyb2]

    It's true that during the forming and construction
phases the community tends to focus very hard on the
nuts and bolts and jumping the necessary hurdles to
get built.  But all that community building touchy
feely stuff about processes and values and work
expectations and privacy vs community and rituals and
conflict resolution turns out to be really important
after move in and if you don't focus some on it as a
community before hand the disappointments will be
greater after move in.  Community is fundamentally
about relationships beyond your family; and as we all
know relationships take work and attention and in the
over busy world we currently live in such demands on
your time can feel burdensome even if you were
expecting them.  How much worse if you didn't have a
clue before hand.  Another argument against very large
cohousing communities.  The time required to nourish
the relationships becomes too overwhelming when you
get over about 30. And they do need nourishing.
                Bonnie Fergusson
                Swan's Market Cohousing
                Oakland, CA

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