Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Is cohousing a consumer product?

[Elizabeth Magill (pastorlizm]

I always describe some unresolved issue that is the art of our community.

Although I agree with others in this thread who have said that perspectives
have a vision and can't alway hear anything that disturbs that vision.

Liz


On Sat, Mar 11, 2023 at 7:57 PM rebecca.selove <rebecca.selove [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> Thanks everyone for the interesting comments.  As a member of a forming
> community I have a question for those of you who have lived in cohousing 10
> years or so: what do you think are the key principles that ought to be
> explained to people who are checking us out?RebeccaBurns Village and
> FarmTennessee Sent from my Galaxy
> -------- Original message --------From: Philip Dowds <rpdowds [at] 
> comcast.net>
> Date: 3/11/23  3:27 PM  (GMT-06:00) To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Is cohousing a consumer product? There are some tricky
> premises buried in this conversation.  One of them is that the
> self-inflicted trial-by-fire of amateurs learning how to develop real
> estate is a critically important bonding experience, sort of like shared
> combat experience in wartime.  There may be some truth to this … but what
> does it say about the future and longevity of any specific cohousing
> community?Cornerstone (Cambridge, MA) is now more than two decades built
> and occupied.  I count the “founders” of Cornerstone as those who joined
> up, pitched in, and risked money before ground-breaking in 2000*.  Since
> then, unit turn-over has been low and slow, but steady.20-some years later,
> only one third of our units are occupied by founders.  The other two-thirds
> are owned and occupied by people who missed out on the hair-raising
> development experience, and (mostly) on the organizing meetings that took
> place during the construction phase.  Several of our units are occupied by
> recent purchasers who bought in during the depths of pandemic, when we all
> wore masks and had no community meals.  Some of the replacement households
> had already lived in community, or had a gift for the life style.  Others,
> maybe not quite so much.I could detail out what I see as stages in our
> community evolution, but that’s not my point.  My point is that if
> cohousing has a future, it’s because it sustains and offers a durable
> culture that lives on and evolves, while specific households come and go.
> Personally, I am very comfortable with imagining a Cambridge of Tomorrow
> that has 20 established cohousing alternatives, but with very few surviving
> founders.  I’d be surprised if *all* these alternatives are *equally*
> elder-focused, or kid-friendly, or vegan, or car- phobic, or “sociocratic”,
> or self-managing, or income-diverse.  In this model, shoppers are both
> welcome and necessary — and variety of product choice is a
> plus.------------------Thanks, RPD617.460.4549 * Incidentally, that’s not
> me.  The DowdsHouse did not move to Cornerstone until 2007.On March 11,
> 2023 at 2:23:01 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L (
> cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org) wrote:Wonderful thread on the
> ability/inability to find a place in cohousing. It brings to mind two
> experiences and one conclusion:1. When I went to my first cohousing
> conference I was surprised at how many people were there not to learn how
> to form a community but how to find one. I was only meeting people who were
> shopping. And they were shopping far and wide.2. When I much later tried to
> build a forum for people who were committed to and needed a cohousing
> community in which the units cost $100,000 or less, it didn’t work. The
> major reason was that no cluster of people formed that wanted to work on
> forming a specific community in a specific place. No commitment to a
> solution specific enough to materialize it.Cohousing communities are
> created; they aren’t found.  Your perfect community can’t exist until you
> are in it.Sharon—————Sharon Villines, Washington DCWe don’t agonize, we
> organize. — Nancy
> Pelosi_________________________________________________________________Cohousing-L
> mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info_________________________________________________________________Cohousing-L
> mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>
> --
-Liz
(The Rev. Dr.) Elizabeth Mae Magill
Pastor, Ashburnham Community Church
Minister to the Affiliates, Ecclesia Ministries
www.elizabethmaemagill.com
508-450-0431