Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: "Neighborhood" Cohousing or "Retrofit" Cohousing

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Thanks for the post Kevin.  We've long realized that the term retrofit
cohousing had drawbacks.  When I first use "retrofit cohousing" in a
conversation, I typically make an aside like 'retrofiting the social
relations'.  I like ther term "neighborhood cohousing".

Having a name makes conversation easier and therefore helps
encourage discussion.  I contend that wide acceptance of
"cohousing" ( by the McCammet and Durrett book in 1988) has
greatly helped encourage the movement despite the shortcomings of
that term's associations in some people's minds ( like communes ).

Ideally names are meaningful, relatively unique, not too long, easily
typed and spoken, memorable, widely accepted and used. It's usually
not possible to achieve all of these.

Long names get abbreviated as context permits so it is helpful to
think of an "official" abbreviation in advance.

In this case the UK aspect adds the aspect of the different
spelling of "neighborhood" in the US and in the UK ( neighbourhood )

I suggest using the abbreviation "Nbhd" to start with:

Nbhd cohousing

(still pronouncing it "neighborhood cohousing" )

Searching wikipedia for "nbhd" gets a link to neighborhood.

And if one feels the context would benefit one might use "neighborhood
retrofit cohousing".

Tho I usually refer to N Street when describing retrofit cohousing, I
dont think it is good for a name of the idea.

BTW Kevin, how have N Street folks responded to the term
"neighborhood cohousing" ?

Fred whose web page http://mn.cohousing.org/retrofit needs updating.

--
Fred H. Olson  Minneapolis,MN 55411  USA        (near north Mpls)
     Email:        fholson at cohousing.org      612-588-9532
My Link Pg: http://fholson.cohousing.org         My org:
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