Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: hostile comment to Fort Collins newspaper article

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Feb 17, 2009, at 11:34 PM, Muriel Kranowski wrote:

> Are there really cohousing communities that dictate what the inside  
> of your
> house has to be like (other than building similar units, as every  
> developer
> does as much as possible, to keep costs down),

Some people see this as dictating the inside of your home. I have  
beige countertops, a color I think is one of the seven deadly sins,  
because the developer needed to cut costs by having one color. The  
design team thought beige was "more neutral" than blue. Well, yes it  
is. That's my point. It's nothing. To avoid beige linoleum, I chose  
all wood, even in the kitchen.

My friends see "putting up" with this, and other "dictates," as lunacy  
and have not a clue why I live here.

> or that disbanded after
> people had moved in and community life had begun because of the  
> kinds of
> interpersonal disputes given as examples?

I think much more of the failure of forming cohousing groups is  
because of personality conflicts than is spoken. I don't think there  
are any studies of why groups fail but it is easier to measure "land  
too expensive" or "no construction loan" than to measure personal  
conflicts.

It takes lot of energy and togetherness to start a community, and  
everyone has to be going in the same direction, or to allow one  
cluster in the group to choose the direction. One would also have to  
measure why the group doesn't attract new members, as many failed  
communities haven't.

My friends see a lot of "conflict" in my community that I see as  
personalities -- "It's just  people. Let them play it out." As  
frustrated as I get, and I get very angry, I also see the social  
downside of not having those people. My friends don't.

Even my daughter has not a clue why I live here. She has many friends  
that she has had since high school and college but she says if they  
lived this close together, they would not have lasted 20 years. She  
would rather have a lot of close friends, across town or two states  
away, than close neighbors.

>  jlbraun1's comments seem to me
> to be irrationally hostile and not true to coho reality, but my  
> knowledge
> base is rather limited.

I think her comments are irrational, but I live in cohousing. My  
friends would find her comments too sweeping in their generalizations  
but they are totally in agreement with her point of view.

Also, this woman is unfortunately using "cohousing" to include many  
kinds of communities. She can't have that broad an experience of real  
cohousing or we would all know who she is.

Rob Sandlin has made two observations that I think are coming into  
play here. When some people leave cohousing they just leave. Others go  
out in a burst of flames.

She may well have gone out in a burst of flames from somewhere.

His other comment is that groups grow less diverse over time. Like  
chooses like. Unlikes leave. People grow to be alike.

There are probably a lot of unlikes out there that will increasingly  
come back to bite us.

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