Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: economic crisis

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Gerald, at which community do you live? I'd be curious to learn if the
basis of your opinion comes from living in a specific cohousing
community, or from the theory of what it is like for those of us that
do live in cohousing communities? Maybe you could share more about
your OPINION that "cohousing is not ready for it." I'm curious about
why you state that as fact? My belief is fairly different and I'd like
to better understand yours.

I believe that a great many cohousing communities have tremendous
economic resiliency - and that your basic premise that creating "our
own industry," that I believe you mean should be "apart from" the
mainstream betrays a point of view that requires examination. It is my
direct experience that my cohousing community is creating this
resiliency by forming "pools of social capital." Also, that by being
"a part of" the mainstream, there's far more opportunity for the
members of my community to create deeper pools of both social and
financial capital.

There are now a great many examples of people in cohousing directly
helping others in their community economically.  In my visits, I've
heard of foreclosures have been averted through interesting equity
arrangements, private loans from subgroups within the community,
purchases by groups that then rent the home back to the former owner,
etc. Other examples are from the income generation side, e.g. people
helping each other get jobs, hiring neighbors for projects and
part-time jobs, businesses by started by neighbors, etc., etc.

Very few examples have been shared outside of specific communities.
Many consider money and how it may or may not flow amongst neighbors
to be private matters.

Craig

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Gerald Manata <gmanata2003 [at] yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>
>     The current economic meltdown is not going to be just another recession, 
> part of the business cycle. The economic system has been on a slow, steady 
> downturn for the last 35 years, with Wall Street and the government using a 
> number of tricks in the last ten years, of which the $700 billion dollar 
> bailout is only the latest, to prolong the inevitable. The years ahead are 
> going to be painful and long
>     Unfortunately, cohousing is not ready for it.
>     In an individualistic society like ours, groups have an advantage, from 
> street gangs up to the largest corporations.One of the many fantasies I had 
> about a movement like cohousing was that, once it got big enough, we could 
> start creating our own industries, employing our own people, engaging in 
> inter-community trade, with our own banking system and our own money. This 
> may have helped cushion us from what is to follow.
>
>
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-- 
Craig Ragland

Coho/US executive director
http://www.cohousing.org
craig [at] cohousing.org

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