Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 141, Issue 27

[Joyce Thorn (jcthorn]

I agree with everything you wrote.   Thank you.   
     Enjoy.    Joyce

> On Oct 24, 2015, at 12:07 PM, William New <wnew [at] stillcreek.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> On Oct 24, 2015, at 3:16 AM,Catya Belfer <catya [at] pobox.com> wrote:
>> 
>> twenty-something renter in my house and it’s GREAT to have him as a member 
>> of my household / my community.
> 
> I too have a Millennial living in our three-generation household, and agree 
> that this is a very positive contribution to provide an extra driver, extra 
> muscle, extra cook, and extra pet care within our extended family.  Indeed 
> for white-hair seniors like myself planning to age-in-place, they are a 
> wonderful addition.
> 
> Increasingly, Millennials are living with parents/extended families or other 
> group arrangement rather than forming their own independent households:
> 
> http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2015/07/29/more-millennials-living-with-family-despite-improved-job-market/?
> 
> There is beneficial synergy here where retired elders provide the housing 
> (often an empty-nest large home) and the youngsters provide physical help and 
> household income, especially where housing is very expensive in 
> full-employment high-demand areas (in our case, San Francisco/Silicon Valley, 
> but also our compadres in high-tech Boston and Seattle environs).
> 
> Larger properties lend themselves to this sort of arrangement.  The 
> cross-generational element is mutually beneficial, especially to seniors for 
> whom health risks and depression are aggravated by isolated living (both US 
> and worldwide):
> 
> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22994616
> 
> Millennials (born 1980 - 2000) are the largest age demographic today in the 
> US, far larger than the GenXers behinds them (1960 - 1980) and the slowly 
> vanishing post-WWII Boomers behind them.  The fastest growing age demographic 
> are the oldsters (75+, in the last third of life) who also hold the greatest 
> fraction of wealth in the US:
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_age#Demographic_changes
> 
> http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2011/11/07/the-rising-age-gap-in-economic-well-being/
> 
> Thus there is an attractive collaboration between Millennials and Oldsters 
> (particularly War Babies and the Silent Generation born 1925 - 1945) —  
> metaphorically, grandchildren living with grandparents, one contributing 
> current income and the other capital housing assets.
> 
> There is a natural tension between parents and children (establishing 
> independence) but a natural comfort between grandparents and children 
> (“sharing a common enemy”) that helps three-generation living arrangements 
> work well. As we consider co-housing (or any of the many euphemisms and 
> variation for cooperative/collaborative residential situations), we should 
> ponder whether the late 20th Century concept of separate family home in 
> suburbia is still relevant, even if arranged in a cooperative “village”, when 
> Millennial household formation is occurring less and less, probably driven by 
> economics but also by a psychosocial shift from the Me-thinking of the Boomer 
> generation to the We-thinking of Millennials.
> 
> === Bill (thoughts over morning coffee)
> 
> William New
> StillCreek Commons
> 94062-0951
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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