Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing and I both show up in the New York Times......sort of

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

"What the Single Ladies Have Wanted For More Than A 
Century"

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/what-the-single-ladies-have-wanted-for-more-than-a-century.html?_r=0

When I heard the headline for this NYT 
article/editorial--I almost/plotzed/ (look it up in The 
Joys of Yiddush)!  The author of the piece told me she 
was doing a story on what she called communal housing 
as a retirement option, and after I convinced her that 
cohousing did not mean sharing a large house with one 
kitchen, she snuck in the question about how many of 
our homes in Swan's Market Cohousing--Oakland, CA 
(where I've lived for 15 years now--my, how the time 
flies) were owned and resided in by a single adult.

She was going to have the NYT photographer from 
Sacramento drive to Oakland to take a picture here, but 
when I talked to the photographer, I suggested that 
instead of taking a two-hour drive in the morning rush 
hour to take one picture of my community (a picture 
unlikely to have any people in it), he might prefer to 
drive a dozen blocks from his home to take a picture of 
a much more 'classic' cohousing community, which is how 
he ended up at Southside Park Cohousing in, duh, 
Sacramento!

It turns out that, in spite of the condescending 
headline which I heartily hate, this is not at all a 
bad article, although it isn't really about cohousing. 
What I like about the article is contained in these 
paragraphs:

"But homes built for nuclear families may not work for 
single adults living together. They might need big 
common rooms, more clearly separated spaces for 
privacy, and even multiple entrances. [kinda like 
cohousing--jb]

"Even if innovations like these become more common, 
many Americans still aren’t comfortable with the idea 
of living with people who aren’t related by marriage or 
blood. The idea of cohabiting with unrelated people not 
solely out of financial necessity but as way to share a 
life, said Bella DePaulo, a social psychologist, “just 
hasn’t been part of our cultural consciousness.”

"Of course, sharing life this way isn’t always easy, 
either, Ms. DePaulo points out. Living singly means 
relying on friends in ways that people used to rely on 
nuclear [I would add 'and extended'---jb]  families, 
and that can create new kinds of friction."

Having been an anthropology major, I like seeing 
attention being given to the cultural reasons why 
shared or community living of any kind is so 
unappealing to many of us individualistic Americans. 
For an American couple or family who find that sharing 
a single family house or an apartment with members of 
one's immediate (nuclear) family is difficult enough, 
any kind of life sharing beyond that nuclear family, 
would necessarily be extremely unattractive, if not an 
anathema!

Even if that family felt that having more of a sense of 
community with those that live closest to them would be 
beneficial, they would find the loss of privacy (real 
or imagined) way too high a cost to pay for the 
benefits of community.

Here's the url again for those of you who did not read 
the article before reading my musings on it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/24/opinion/what-the-single-ladies-have-wanted-for-more-than-a-century.html?_r=0
If this takes you to the home page of the NYT, just put 
"single ladies" in the internal search engine  of the 
Times and you'll find the article.