Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Defining Cohousing

[Craig Ragland (craigragland]

Great points - I'm unclear about whether ownership is appropriate to
tie in. There are so many stories now of renters who are really full
members of communities AND some affordable rental-only projects are
now being sold as cohousing. Here's one of the better known examples
currently under development:

http://www.cohousing.org/directory/view/21715

It was a tough decision on whether to include this project in the
directory or not. There was so much cohousing energy being focused on
it that we ultimately decided it was best to pull away from ownership.
This decision was based, in part, on ownership explicitly not found as
defining characteristic - but should it be? The two of us who made the
call decided YES (but we really are just a couple of cohousers trying
to do the right thing).

I think Rob's exactly right that the cohousing concept/model really
requires differentiation from (1) typical, conventional multi-family
housing which is created primarily to serve commercial interests, AND
(2) more utopian communities - especially those with highly
unconventional practices, e.g., STRONG leader with immense power,
income-sharing, etc. Exactly how differentiation relates to beliefs
and values remains quite unclear to me. The current six
characteristics really dodge that bullet - attempts to describe
cohousing as being tied to any particular "-ism" is almost always
controversial, as so many threads here have demonstrated.

Based on input from Zev and Neshama, when I speak to the press, I tend
focus my language on neighborhoods, rather than community. I
invariably talk about the sense of the community that we create, but I
also message sustainability and the direct human benefits, e.g. older
folks aging successfully, younger folks growing up healthy. Unlike the
recent past, there are more reporters that don't even bring up
communes - though that image is far from historic in many people's
eyes.

One idea, from the referenced thesis, that I particularly like is that
cohousing is a "practical form of community," not exotic and
unachievable.

I'm sure that one reason that cohousing projects succeed so often at
actually creating a community (compared to other forms of intentional
community), is that within one group/community, we so often bring
together folks with the BIG VISION (who frame some abstract values and
core ideas) with others that are grounded by pragmatics (they already
know how to focus resources to GET BIG STUFF DONE).

And what a rich life having these fine folks around us can create...

Craig

On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 1:06 PM, Rob Sandelin <floriferous [at] msn.com> wrote:
>
> One of my problems with some of the
> definitions of cohousing is that they do not effectively distinguish
> cohousing from almost any other kind of intentional community.  However in
> my travels around various intentional communities, cohousing is sometimes
> seen as something VERY different (with the context of being inferior) to
> whatever that particular community does.  So it seems like there are two
> definitions required.  One which illustrates how cohousing differs from a
> typical condo with common space and a home owners association, and how it
> differs from say, a cooperative.  My own definition of cohousing always
> includes the notion of private ownership and bank financed, while that is
> normal for condos, it is rare in other kinds of Intentional Communities.
>
> There is also a major marketing role in having a definition which is easy
> for lenders and other associated interests to be comfortable with. What is
> really required? A commonhouse? Shared Meals? A desire to know and work
> cooperatively with your neighbors? A democratic process?  Of these 4 ideas,
> a condo can have 3 of them.  Intention seems to be a major piece of why
> cohousing (and other communities) exist. But how to define that intention?
>
> Rob Sandelin
> Sharingwood
> Snohomish County, WA
> On a very rainy day
-- 
Craig Ragland

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

Songaia
Also Snohomish County, WA
Also rainy - in fact, its delayed a replacement sidewalk construction project.