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

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Takoma Village was the first new housing development in our neighborhood in 
eons. The neighborhood was considered by some as dangerous. Don’t walk home 
from the Metro after 9:00. Body found ….. Mugging…. Stuff like that but not as 
often as when I lived in NYC.

I think the community was a spur to later development and welcomed by this 
neighborhood. There was fear that we would become a gated community. That I 
know of there were no palpable fears about hippies. But Takoma Park MD is 
pretty crunchy so I think people were probably less sensitive than in other 
places. In Florida at a hearing on zoning, the neighbors were convinced that 
cohousing was synonymous with nudist.

One incident in DC, I remember, was the first tour for the neighborhood. I was 
explaining the laundry room and saying that we were going to put a clothesline 
on the lawn outside the window. One of the African American women in the group 
stood very tall and said, “Not in this neighborhood you don’t.” The others 
agreed. We were ahead of the curve on hanging laundry outside being a good 
thing rather than a sign of impoverishment. In an African American neighborhood 
this was palpable. We nixed the clothesline.

The bigger impact, as others have said, is that we brought a new wave of 
professionals and socially conscious people to the neighborhood. The first wave 
had been in the late 1960s and early 1970s when young professionals moved in to 
rehab the old bungalows and Victorians. (They are now the old guard.)

And we also have residents all over the DC and federal governments. Many 
non-profits. Energy department. Non-profits related to energy. The World Bank. 
Nader’s organization. Finance and Taxation. Stuff like that.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org