Getting it Built
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The 2009 National Cohousing Conference is now in full swing, and even though I’m not attending any of the main events, I have plenty to think about from the Getting it Built workshop I attended on Wednesday with Jason. Kathryn McCamant was the presenter, and it was interesting to hear about her extensive experience in cohousing development.
I’m still processing some of the info-overload from the workshop, but there were definitely a few things that stuck out to me initially.
- Cohousing is a beautiful idea, and it definitely has the transformative capacity to significantly reshape the way we live. Those who are leading this emerging movement are inspired by an alternative vision of neighborhoods, community, and sustainability that deconstructs the status quo of sprawl, isolation, and consumerism in most of the housing options currently available to us.
- With that said, it is also a very long, costly, and difficult process that could go terribly wrong. For much to be gained, much is risked. Seeing the whole process unpacked is pretty intimidating.
- It struck me that there is a great deal of privilege in cohousing; merely having the conversation about alternative/sustainable models of housing assumes a certain level of socioeconomic privilege. Being the only person of color in the room made me wonder: are people of color not interested in cohousing, or is it my privilege that makes me interested, or both?
- Regardless of where any of this goes (if anywhere at all), I’m always encouraged when people sit around a table and share ideas about how to make “community” and “sustainability” (and the broad categories those concepts represent) more of a reality in our lives. Life is too short and too misdirected by competing agendas to not ask these difficult questions.
More to follow later.
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I’ve found that many people of color already do co-house, simply not through a formal system. In fact one could argue that people of color lead the way in co-housing by setting up informal arrangements not based in the traditional Western family model.
Lack of a formalized system, in this case, does not imply lack of interest or engagement, but that it looks “different” than the more formal methods of design and sustainability modeled here.
I look to the local Samoan community as an ideal example of this. Extended family goes far beyond blood relations, and if someone has a bed available it can be filled by anyone in the “family”. Groups of families will all live in the same apartment complex, play on the same baseball team, and carry kids from place to place. Food is shared and when the dinner bell rings, everyone is invited. There is no need to formalize this process, it is assumed. It’s innate to how they do “family”.
“Sustainability” might have a different definition in communities of color. Environment is secondary to taking care of the babies, making sure the kid on the street is safe for the night, ensuring the single teen mother is nurtured and given the opportunity to finish high school while the baby is given childcare by the grandmothers, aunties and uncles.
When we think of co-housing and sustainability with communities of color, we need to expand our definitions. In doing so we find that that they have been pioneers in this movement, and that we have much to learn from them. In doing so we find that people of color co-house out of need; out of function; out of values of family, togetherness, proximity, and survival. We find that the model isn’t designed with architects and urban planners, but organically from the resources available.
Comment by beneaththeshelter June 27, 2009 @ 8:27 am@beneath- Yes, that’s pretty much what I mean: when people of color live communally, it’s out of necessity and functionality, but when privileged/white people choose to live that way, it’s “new” and “novel” and “a sustainable alternative” to suburban sprawl thanks to innovative designs from architects, etc.
It’s no one’s fault per se; I’m just making an observation. As a son of second-generation immigrants (and the spouse of a first-gen immigrant), I understand the informal networks formed by immigrant communities. But I think it’s interesting to consider the fact that much of the ideology behind cohousing (as formally defined by the US coho assoc.) has little to no resonance with communities who are most often trying to get OUT of communal systems in order to “make it” on their own. That is the “American Dream” we’ve sold them on, and so we shouldn’t be surprised when people idolize the McMansion.
I guess all I’m trying to say is that it takes a person of privilege to reject the McMansion ideal when that person has a choice whether or not to live in a communal arrangement, formal or otherwise. For many people in my neighborhood (the long time locals, not the “new gentrifiers” like myself), cohousing simply sounds like “a white thing”, and it’s indicative of larger problematic structures in the stratification of housing and our entire urban/suburban economies.
Comment by david June 27, 2009 @ 9:12 amyeah they tried that in chicago for black people…it’s called the projects
Comment by jkoh July 1, 2009 @ 11:41 am