Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Thank you from a new community!

[Gerald Manata (gmanata2003]

     In response to the last post of Sharon Villines: I too have found 
cohousing, at least our place, to be a lot more conservative then I expected-in 
my case to my disappointment.

Gerry Manata
Oak Creek Commons, CA

Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com> wrote: 

On Jun 25, 2008, at 4:52 PM, Gerald Manata wrote:

> When a cohousing community is very little changed culturally  
> speaking from any typical active, upscale American middle class  
> condominium complex, then I would refer to it as conservative. If a  
> community has "cultural creatives",and they have influenced the  
> membership to generally change cultural traits (manner of dress,  
> etiquette, ethics, customs, mores, etc) then I would call these  
> communities liberal, or even radical.

Thank you for the clarification. I would call our community culturally  
sort of conservative. Compared to religiously fundamentalists,  
however, very liberal.

It is more conservative than I expected cohousing to be with fewer  
people willing to try things. Not even radical things, just changing  
from whatever we are doing now. They are more accepting of the status  
quo and there is more inertia than I expected.

My impression from questions on this list, other cohousing communities  
are as well. But that is also why I was attracted to cohousing -- it  
is comfortably not out there on the fringes. Economically sound.  
Stable family relationships. Middle class values.

I think people are more open to gay households, adoption,  
intermingling of lives, more open to religiously mixed groups. Recycle  
more. Fairly regularly the composting person has to say, "No more! The  
bins are running over." Beautiful gardens but nothing like xeriscape  
or cactus. No takers when I suggested alpine gardens.

No drug experimentation -- although the community refused to make a  
rule about no drugs on the property when one potential household  
demanded it, but the issue was making rules about what happens in one  
household not acceptance of drugs. No nudism, except maybe in the hot  
tub occasionally and children under 2. No purrple houses, un-mowed  
yards, children drinking wine, shared incomes, pet cobras, guns,  
bibles on the dinner table, electricity free -- stuff like that. For a  
couple of years there was no TV in the commonhouse but that didn't last.

Vegans, vegetarians, omniverous, and one raw foodist. Electric cars  
will be big. Our people mostly drive compact cars or Priuses, except  
mini-vans for people with 2 kids -- none have more than 2. Bicycles  
are big and some bike to work. One drives his children to school,  
parks a few miles from his office, then bikes the rest of the way into  
the center of DC.

One person writes on Roman coins and works as a lawyer for a hospital.  
One is a cornel in the army and a child psychiatrist. She comes home  
in her costume -- usually camouflage -- walks across the piazza and  
down the green. That's pretty weird, although she changes to trendy  
casual clothes pretty quickly. Another was in military intelligence,  
assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and he came home in something  
that looked like a Green Beret outfit -- retired now and promoting  
electric cars.

About 10% gay households which is the national average, I think, but  
not so openly. One campaigns for Kucinich (spellng?), a lot of Obama  
supporters. All the younger children are being educated as bilingual,  
not just an hour a day but half a day with subjects taught in the  
language by native speakers. French or Spanish. Probably an over  
representation of violin lessons.

So we have lots of variety but not culturally radical, perhaps mildly  
cultural creative.

But I worked in the Village for 10 years, lived there for 6, and was  
educated in art departments with some pretty culturally radical  
artists, and my students were almost all artists, so "culturally  
creative" probably has a skewed meaning for me.

And I've been in cohousing or forming and studying cohousing since  
1996 so I may not know what a "normal" community is anymore.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing,Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org



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