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Still Not King
May. 2nd, 2009 01:52 amToday was supposed to be my first full day as a homeowner. That didn't quite work out due to a banking snafu, but nevertheless, the reason for this blog remains: To give a vivid day-to-day description of what it's like for me to live in Cohousing.
This being the first post, there's some obligatory explaining to do. Cohousing began as a residential architectural movement in Denmark in the 60s. It is sometimes referred to as (a kind of) "intentional community", and the Danish term translates more directly to "living community". Cohousing features smaller, greener houses, an emphasis on community and neighborhood interaction, and owner-designed shared space. I am buying a home in Camelot Cohousing in Berlin, MA.
I'm sure there will be posts about how my Cohousing Development was put into place, but this post is all about me. Ironically, the originally intended narrative subject of this post will be put aside. While I had not intended to discuss my personal reasons for joining cohousing today, they came up in conversation today anyway. My reasons are threefold, which can be briefly described as: The idea, the design, and the people.
•First, the idea. I went to college at WPI, and to get to the nearest dining hall, I had to pass through The Wedge. "Had to" is a misnomer, though. I was a Wedge Rat. I spent much of my free time there, because I could count on people I knew to be there. Every May, we were sad when the students scattered to the four winds, but during the school year, it was a place I could go to, just about any time day or night, and expect to see people. People I knew and got along with and could relate to, and wanted to be social. I saw my friends grow older, and graduate, and it slowly became less and less possible for individual people to be there. As they got jobs, moved out of walking distance, or even out of Worcester itself, for most Wedge Rats, the wedge became a memory rather than a place.
Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. But for the material things, I find it's got more to do with the efforts we go to to provide youth with valuable things than it is with our abilities to recreate or appreciate them later on. I didn't want the wedge to be simply a fond memory for me because it has value to me in the here and now. I want to be able to leave my car behind when I go to activities. I want to be able to stay up late and stumble home. I want to bump into people who have insomnia when I have insomnia and share a cup of tea with them and watch the sun rise. All I needed to do was find a group who felt such places still had value to them, and find a way to create such a space for ourselves, rather than relying on WPI to build it for us.
•The Design. Most Cohousing Communities are like, if not in legal fact, a condominium complex. There are closely built units and shared facilities. The key difference, though, is that Cohousing is generally designed by the people who intend to live there, whereas condos are generally built by people who make money selling new construction. When you have people building a thing together, they compromise and work to find ways to realize each other's goals. And a big way that shows up in Cohousing is what common facilities get built. Camelot has an athletic field because we like to play sports. Camelot has a pool because we like to swim. Camelot has a workshop because we like to build. Camelot has a tv room because we like to watch movies. Camelot has a game room, an exercise room, a sewing room, a kid's room...because thought and foresight went into the planning of the development, and people who valued these things were planning to live here and use them, and so made them happen.
You'd think, with our goals of interaction, social connection, child safety, and shared resources, that we'd have more rules than the typical condo. But it's easy to tell someone you've never met that there is a limit on the size of their pets because it lowers your property values. It's hard to tell your friend and neighbor that you're denying them a large dog merely to line your pockets. It's easy to send a memo that everyone should have a white door because it provides a uniform look to the neighborhood. It's hard to tell someone they can't have the stained glass door they've been dreaming of because you want everything to look the same. No, a lot of the typical rules of condos have been left behind or minimized. Because we see the primary value of our neighborhood to be what we effort we put into it and what joy we get out of it. The financial value of selling a place actually vanishes when you truly intend to live there the rest of your days.
•The People. The biggest complaint I've seen of bothering to build Cohousing goes something like: Why don't you just get to know the neighbors you already have? Sadly, that's harder than it sounds. Post-WWII residential neighborhood design was specifically geared toward being as private, as anonymous, as impersonal as possible. Even today, hundreds-plus condo developments are built where every unit is indistinguishable save the numbers on their doors. Huge tracts of land are given over to cookie-cutter cottages and McMansions. There's economic forces at work for why this happens, but there's also social forces at work: Not everyone wants to get to know their neighbors. Some people really do just want to drive to and from home and never get to know the older person across the street with whom they disagree politically, or the young family down the way that has a radically different religious bent.
They shouldn't have to put up with meddling cohousers trying to drag them into their community, and we shouldn't have to put up with people who are perfectly happy with what the last 60 years have built for housing. Throughout my childhood, I had to work with people who didn't want to work with me. And while I found a way to muddle through it, the fact is, there are people out there who want to live in the kind of neighborhood I want to live in, and I already knew some of them. At first, Camelot was just this crazy project of Karen and her friends. It sounded fun but a little "out there". Then I met Kathy, whose vivid and heartfealt experiences made me want to see it for myself. So I went to a planning meeting and found out that I knew many of the people in the room.
And of the people I didn't know, I found out that they were my kind of people. They have diverse ages, backgrounds, hobbies, religions, and parenting styles. But I'm used to that. We shared an idea, and a willingness to see that idea through, and the firm belief that our different variations of that idea could coexist simply by occasionally being willing to bend.
Camelot was a medieval dream that out of economic and political systems designed to oppress and control could be born law, justice, equality, and mercy. Camelot Cohousing is a modern dream that out of systems of legally enforced selfishness and impersonality could arise a neighborhood where everyone knew each other because they wanted to, where we could keep up with the Joneses by sharing with them, and where the resources we had always dreamed of were right at our fingertips. I'm a firm believing in having your cake and eating it too. And does everyone else on my street.
This being the first post, there's some obligatory explaining to do. Cohousing began as a residential architectural movement in Denmark in the 60s. It is sometimes referred to as (a kind of) "intentional community", and the Danish term translates more directly to "living community". Cohousing features smaller, greener houses, an emphasis on community and neighborhood interaction, and owner-designed shared space. I am buying a home in Camelot Cohousing in Berlin, MA.
I'm sure there will be posts about how my Cohousing Development was put into place, but this post is all about me. Ironically, the originally intended narrative subject of this post will be put aside. While I had not intended to discuss my personal reasons for joining cohousing today, they came up in conversation today anyway. My reasons are threefold, which can be briefly described as: The idea, the design, and the people.
•First, the idea. I went to college at WPI, and to get to the nearest dining hall, I had to pass through The Wedge. "Had to" is a misnomer, though. I was a Wedge Rat. I spent much of my free time there, because I could count on people I knew to be there. Every May, we were sad when the students scattered to the four winds, but during the school year, it was a place I could go to, just about any time day or night, and expect to see people. People I knew and got along with and could relate to, and wanted to be social. I saw my friends grow older, and graduate, and it slowly became less and less possible for individual people to be there. As they got jobs, moved out of walking distance, or even out of Worcester itself, for most Wedge Rats, the wedge became a memory rather than a place.
Youth, as they say, is wasted on the young. But for the material things, I find it's got more to do with the efforts we go to to provide youth with valuable things than it is with our abilities to recreate or appreciate them later on. I didn't want the wedge to be simply a fond memory for me because it has value to me in the here and now. I want to be able to leave my car behind when I go to activities. I want to be able to stay up late and stumble home. I want to bump into people who have insomnia when I have insomnia and share a cup of tea with them and watch the sun rise. All I needed to do was find a group who felt such places still had value to them, and find a way to create such a space for ourselves, rather than relying on WPI to build it for us.
•The Design. Most Cohousing Communities are like, if not in legal fact, a condominium complex. There are closely built units and shared facilities. The key difference, though, is that Cohousing is generally designed by the people who intend to live there, whereas condos are generally built by people who make money selling new construction. When you have people building a thing together, they compromise and work to find ways to realize each other's goals. And a big way that shows up in Cohousing is what common facilities get built. Camelot has an athletic field because we like to play sports. Camelot has a pool because we like to swim. Camelot has a workshop because we like to build. Camelot has a tv room because we like to watch movies. Camelot has a game room, an exercise room, a sewing room, a kid's room...because thought and foresight went into the planning of the development, and people who valued these things were planning to live here and use them, and so made them happen.
You'd think, with our goals of interaction, social connection, child safety, and shared resources, that we'd have more rules than the typical condo. But it's easy to tell someone you've never met that there is a limit on the size of their pets because it lowers your property values. It's hard to tell your friend and neighbor that you're denying them a large dog merely to line your pockets. It's easy to send a memo that everyone should have a white door because it provides a uniform look to the neighborhood. It's hard to tell someone they can't have the stained glass door they've been dreaming of because you want everything to look the same. No, a lot of the typical rules of condos have been left behind or minimized. Because we see the primary value of our neighborhood to be what we effort we put into it and what joy we get out of it. The financial value of selling a place actually vanishes when you truly intend to live there the rest of your days.
•The People. The biggest complaint I've seen of bothering to build Cohousing goes something like: Why don't you just get to know the neighbors you already have? Sadly, that's harder than it sounds. Post-WWII residential neighborhood design was specifically geared toward being as private, as anonymous, as impersonal as possible. Even today, hundreds-plus condo developments are built where every unit is indistinguishable save the numbers on their doors. Huge tracts of land are given over to cookie-cutter cottages and McMansions. There's economic forces at work for why this happens, but there's also social forces at work: Not everyone wants to get to know their neighbors. Some people really do just want to drive to and from home and never get to know the older person across the street with whom they disagree politically, or the young family down the way that has a radically different religious bent.
They shouldn't have to put up with meddling cohousers trying to drag them into their community, and we shouldn't have to put up with people who are perfectly happy with what the last 60 years have built for housing. Throughout my childhood, I had to work with people who didn't want to work with me. And while I found a way to muddle through it, the fact is, there are people out there who want to live in the kind of neighborhood I want to live in, and I already knew some of them. At first, Camelot was just this crazy project of Karen and her friends. It sounded fun but a little "out there". Then I met Kathy, whose vivid and heartfealt experiences made me want to see it for myself. So I went to a planning meeting and found out that I knew many of the people in the room.
And of the people I didn't know, I found out that they were my kind of people. They have diverse ages, backgrounds, hobbies, religions, and parenting styles. But I'm used to that. We shared an idea, and a willingness to see that idea through, and the firm belief that our different variations of that idea could coexist simply by occasionally being willing to bend.
Camelot was a medieval dream that out of economic and political systems designed to oppress and control could be born law, justice, equality, and mercy. Camelot Cohousing is a modern dream that out of systems of legally enforced selfishness and impersonality could arise a neighborhood where everyone knew each other because they wanted to, where we could keep up with the Joneses by sharing with them, and where the resources we had always dreamed of were right at our fingertips. I'm a firm believing in having your cake and eating it too. And does everyone else on my street.
