Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Coho impact on neighborhood ?

[Tiffany Lee Brown (magdalen23]

i would also be curious to hear about negative impacts—just any solid research 
about effects on community would be great. for example, in the neighborhood i'm 
leaving in SE Portland, a new co-housing retirement development is going in. 
the neighborhood does not see this as a great new addition to the community, 
but as yet another development full of non-local people with out-of-state money 
piling up condos and destroying what makes our town unique in the first place. 
(in this case, the development is going in on top of what has been a beloved 
food cart pod.) so if there are ways in which co-housing development is 
superior to regular old displacing-the-locals development, a.k.a. 
gentrification, that is not being communicated in this instance. 

does being a "community" or "cohousing" automatically make the development 
"good"? i guess that's something i would like to see explored. "We're going to 
have an eco-roof" or "With our smaller footprints, we care more about the 
environment than you do" can make a person sound rather smug and superior. the 
locals who are losing their way of life and the affordability of their 
neighborhoods are just struggling to get by. any kind of development can 
infringe on their ability to exist and enjoy life. does this get addressed in 
cohousing literature?

thanks - hope i'm not sounding too grouchy! but there's definitely a story 
here, and i'm a very curious person.

tiffany


On Apr 10, 2016, at 2:37 PM, Liz Brown wrote:

> 
> Thanks Jesse this is exactly the kind of concrete examples I'm looking for!
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
>> On Apr 10, 2016, at 9:48 AM, Jessie Kome <jehako [at] me.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Hi-
>> 
>> Here at Eastern Village Cohousing, some of our original members founded the 
>> neighborhood association for the South Silver Spring area. Once founded, 
>> they recruited representatives from the surrounding buildings and advocated 
>> for more services and gave us a voice with the County. Over the years, EVC 
>> has hosted lots of events with local officials and candidates and invited 
>> folks from the greater neighborhood. We have also been a strong voice for 
>> getting a better polling place.
>> 
>> When we moved in in 2004, there was prostitution in the hotel down the block 
>> from us and we pressured the county and the hotel to act. We have 
>> participated in getting school bus stops nearer to us, and gave the 
>> neighborhood a voice in the county's school assignment area decisions. 
>> 
>> We are seeing indirect effects as well. Some of the apartment buildings 
>> constructed since we moved in decided to add roof decks and even some green 
>> roof space like we have. And one of the new buildings down the block is 
>> advertising its courtyard as a place to meet your neighbors. 
>> 
>> -Jessie Handforth Kome
>> Eastern Village Cohousing
>> Silver Spring, Maryland
>> Where we are doing the spring work day thing.
>> 
>> Sent from my iPad
>> 
>>> On Apr 10, 2016, at 9:34 AM, Liz Brown <clzbrown [at] rochester.rr.com> 
>>> wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Does anyone have research or stories on how cohousers help improve their 
>>> neighborhoods, especially urban?
>>> Liz Brown
>>> Flower City
>>> 
>>> Sent from my iPhone
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> 
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Tiffany Lee Brown
editor, plazm magazine
tiffany [at] plazm.com / magdalen23 [at] gmail.com