Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: religious communities compared to cohousing

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

The description of a "Practical Community" in this thesis appears
broader than cohousing - it is inclusive of many other communities
that would not appreciate the cohousing label (cohousing evokes a
mixed response among some living in intentional communities that clear
about not being "not cohousing"). As has been pointed out here, there
are also communities that self-identify as cohousing, but are also
quite clear about being "ecological" and "religious."

The question of What is Cohousing is answered in quite different ways
by different people. You can witness this yourself if you actively
browse the Coho-L archive or visit a variety of Cohousing Community
websites - especially if you include forming groups.

Many cohousing communities have linked to the  "What is Cohousing" and
"6 Defining Characteristics of Cohousing" pages on www.cohousing.org
website as they describe their vision and practices to others:

http://www.cohousing.org/what_is_cohousing
http://www.cohousing.org/six_characteristics

On a practical level, this is also what the Cohousing Directory
Editors continue to use as the basis for considering whether to
include communities asking to be added to this Coho/US-edited
directory. The FIC Communities Directory is much broader and allows
anybody to post any community or forming group.

In a recent 3-hour drive with Chuck Durrett, we carefully reviewed the
6 defining characteristics - and took notes. I wrote this up and sent
potential revisions to Chuck and am now awaiting his response.

We are considering whether to revise it to help clarify the intentions
and make it easier to talk about What Is and What Isn't Cohousing.

My general thinking, as Coho/US ED, is to simultaneously tighten the
definition of Cohousing a bit - making it more operational, so that it
can more easily be understood whether a community group and its
housing development project is cohousing, AND, at the same time, for
Coho/US to begin embracing closely-related communities, which do not
have one or more of the characteristics. To make this more concrete,
there are very small community groups (fewer than 4 homes) that use
the label cohousing. Some have no common spaces, using the fairly
rationale argument that they are so small that they can easily just
make use of some of their private dining spaces to accomplish the same
goals. Is this cohousing? How small can a "neighborhood" be?
Similarly, in talking with some developers, I've heard some say that
they want to do cohousing communities with hundreds of private homes.
This probably doesn't make sense if the intentions of cohousing are to
remain practical - unless, perhaps, the plan is for multiple cohousing
communities within a larger, planned development.

I plan to put the revised Defining Characteristics content out for
public comment/discussion after Chuck and other key stakeholders come
to some agreement before we begin formally using it in public. If we
do update the Defining Characteristics page, it is likely to become
the "standard" definition after we begin applying it to the Cohousing
Directory.

We'll share more about how this story develops as we move it forward
to help us create a growing, expanding movement - making society
better, one neighborhood at a time.

Craig

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 10:32 AM, Fred H Olson <fholson [at] cohousing.org> 
wrote:
>
> Hans Tilstra <hans.tilstra [at] rmit.edu.au>
> is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
> Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
> after deleting quoted digest.
>
> --------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------
>
> The discussion of Christian cohousing communities raises an important
> question of definitions
> of what correlates with the definition & identity of cohousing.
>
> Louise Meijering completed a thesis which includes a chapter on a typology
> of intentional communities. Table 3.1 of chapter 3
> http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/rw/2006/l.meijering/c3.pdf
> presents the concept of 'intentional communities' as the umbrella term,
> and contrasts between religious communities and what I think is cohousing,
> which is the practical type of intentional community.
>
> regards,
>
> Hans
>
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/


--
Craig Ragland

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

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