Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: economic crisis

[Raines Cohen (rc3-coho-L]

On Sun, Oct 5, 2008 at 5:31 PM, Gerald Manata <gmanata2003 [at] yahoo.com> 
wrote:
>     Unfortunately, cohousing is not ready for it.

So what are you doing to get Oak Creek Commons ready for it?

I've visited more than 80 cohousing neighborhoods across the U.S. over
the past decade, helped develop one as a member, and lived in two.

I've found all kinds of innovative strategies that build economic
independence and community resilience (in the sense that Craig
mentions). Both within communities, and between them. Both "of the
community" (as a whole-group official effort/policy), and among one or
several members.

>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.

I think if you look beneath the surface, you'll find people in cohousing:

- investing in cohousing developers
- loaning money to other communities
- engaging in co-marketing between communities
- creating regional partnerships
- hiring other cohousers
- sharing cars and other expensive resources
- cooperatively shopping and bulk purchasing
- acting as Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) distribution points

Just because a community itself isn't in a particular line of business
doesn't mean that the members can't work together. You don't need
everybody in a community onboard to do something interesting and
innovative... you just need enough people with enough awareness of
shared interest/opportunity, PLUS some "burning soul" willing to step
forward and take action. If people aren't feeling able to do so, then
perhaps it is worth looking at whether something in the community
culture is discouraging rather than encouraging this sort of
initiative.

My friends Mandy and Ryan will be bicycling out towards your community
within the next week. They are on a 12,000-mile
sustainable-communities bicycle tour around North America, documenting
exactly these stories and helping people in and out of community see
that the potential is Within Reach. I highly recommend that you
connect with them and set up to host them for a stay and talk, you may
find it very helpful for the community:
http://www.withinreachmovie.com/

I think your fantasy may be already realized... if you want to invest
in making it more real for your own community, let me know, I can
share what works for some and help you map out your own strategy to
build engagement in these areas.

Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach, Planning for Sustainable Communities
at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing

Northern California Regional Organizer, Cohousing California

where yesterday we rented a CityCarShare van and crammed 5 adults, 2
kids, and 2 recumbent bikes in to travel 200 miles each way to the
grand opening of a new cohousing neighborhood... where we ran into
folks living in and creating cohousing from at least five different
cities, all around the state.