Cohousing-L Mailing List: Creating Cohousing Right Where You Live

[Ann Zabaldo (zabaldo]

Hi all --

The Washington Post ran quite a lengthy article recently profiling three 
households in the city that combined their small backyards to make an 
absolutely elegant backyard garden for all of them.  On their own ... they each 
had a little backyard.  Together ... they have an oasis.  

It occurred to me that even tho' this is a very, very small number of 
households for cohousing or even a "pocket neighborhood" ... all the principles 
are there:  private homes clustered around a central common area, designed and 
built by its users/residents, maintained by its user/residents, "architecture" 
-- in this case landscape architecture --  that enhances a sense of community.

This is much in the vein of "retrofit" cohousing where households in a 
neighborhood collaborate to create cohousing by taking down the fences in the 
back yards.

I wrote a short entry about this on our blog yesterday.  You can get the whole 
article there, too.

http://www.cohousingblog.com

Best --

Ann Zabaldo
Takoma Village Cohousing
Washington, DC
Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
Falls Church VA
703 663 3911