Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Ashland, OR news article

[Karen Scheer (karen]

http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/1118/local/stories/cohouse- 
jd.htm
The link has to be all on one line to work as a link.  Otherwise,  
copy & paste it
onto your web browser.  Hope this works!  Thanks for all the good  
info, Raine!
-Karen

On Nov 18, 2006, at 10:30 AM, Raines Cohen wrote:

> On Nov 18, 2006, at 9:09 AM, Karen Scheer wrote:
> > Hey!  We made the local papers!
>
> Congrats, Karen. I had some trouble clicking on the link you
> provided, here's another attempt:
>
> http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2006/1118/local/stories/cohouse-
> jd.htm
>
> Some key excerpts:
>
> The opener:
> > Based on alternative energy, community gardening and "being there"
> > for each other in a multi-generational, interactive setting, a $3.2
> > million, 13-home co-housing project is seeing the rafters rise
> > after a contentious journey through City Hall.
>
> Newspapers thrive on creating controversy... sometimes it seems like
> they accentuate the negative, or the alternative (i.e. "weird"). This
> has a little of that, but it comes out net positive.
>
> > "It's been four years of hard work, but now I'm really excited
> > about seeing it done and working," says project designer Melanie
> > Mindlin, an original member who went on to live elsewhere. "It was
> > hard for the neighbors to lose this nice, open field, but now one
> > of them says she's going to take down her fence and open her yard
> > to the commons."
>
> This is exciting, the prospect of building community-in-place,
> perhaps associate members, that connect with the community through
> proximity.
>
> > The main misconception, says Huston, is that co-housing is a
> > commune. It isn't. You still own and sell your own home but you
> > share ownership of a garden, open space and commons hall, which has
> > a kitchen, dining room, children's play area and multi-purpose room
> > for arts, crafts and yoga.
>
> Newspaper headline writers are in love with the term. I've given up
> on trying to keep them from using the word, but having helpful
> explanations like this is very useful.
>
> > There are 80 co-housing projects in the U.S. with another 120 under
> > construction
>
> We just ran some new numbers for the cohousing booth at the Green
> Festival in San Francisco, and we come up with 93 completed
> communities and 107 under development (including early-stage
> formation, some of which will never end up with a site). It depends
> on how you count 'em and where you draw the lines, but we're
> discovering new ones every day that haven't registered on our list,
> even well into the process.
>
> Note that the story has related forums, where you can register and
> comment. I try to do that to build engagement and correct errors in
> stories I see. There doesn't seem to be a thread ("topic") up yet
> about this story, but there is an interesting one debating how/
> whether Californians are ruining Southern Oregon (seems a little more
> centered around Medford than Ashland):
>
> http://www.mailtribuneforum.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=706
>
> R
>
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