This past weekend I attended an outstanding conference, one at which over 350 intelligent optimists gathered to advance a movement that is at the forefront of transforming our world. The 2009 National Cohousing Conference is the national conference for those who already live in cohousing, who are currently seeking a community, and professionals serving cohousing communities to learn new ways to "grow community." I attended as a neophyte, a newcomer with a desire to learn about cohousing – exploring the idea of living in community.
Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. More importantly, active participation requires that people work together and working together is a key ingredient to ‘community glue’, an ingredient that binds individuals together and enables them to achieve a higher purpose. In many ways, the product of community glue is social capital. ‘Social capital’ makes communities better places to live. It is mutually respectful relationships, connectedness and trustworthiness among people. It’s also networks and involvement. The term social capital was coined by social scientist James Coleman to describe community ties, and Robert Putnam furthered popularized this research in his book, Bowling Alone.
My primary interest in cohousing can be summed up in two words; missional sustainability. I’m increasingly convinced that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation. The impacts will largely be on the poor and not in the distant future. We will experience the affects within my lifetime and extreme affects in the lifetimes of our children. Climate change will have its greatest effect on those who have the least access to the world’s resources and who have contributed least to its cause. Without mitigation and adaptation, it will increase health inequity especially through negative effects on the social determinants of health in the poorest communities. Couple climate change with ‘peak oil’ and I clearly see the need to get serious and ‘work’ to transform the consumption based and individualistic culture I have so easily become a part of. Since it is clear that I contribute to the cause and that I have the ability to take personal action, doing nothing creates a high degree of cognitive dissonance in my missionally shaped mind.
5 comments:
Brian, it sounds like you had as much fun at the cohousing conference in Seattle last weekend as I did - but hopefully not as exhausting.
One small correction (I know the official wording was unclear, calling this the "first national annual conference"): there have been national cohousing conferences in the U.S. for decades - I've been participating as far back as 1999, and there was one in Seattle in 1997 - but this is the first annual one (following hot on the heels of last year's near Boston), rather than every 2-3 years.
I, too, was impressed by the speakers... but also felt frustrated, as this is a grassroots movement, in the process of making it more professional, predictable, repeatable, and managed, I think we have lost some of the spontaneity and opportunities for two-way peer-to-peer interaction that for me were a highlight of some past events. I'm looking forward to continuing the conversation in the year 'til the next conference in Boulder.
Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach
Planning for Sustainable Communities
at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing
Raines,
Made a slight change to this post to clear things up and I agree with your view of the professional influences. The most energizing conversations were with the passionate people who are deeply involved and living in community. A few of the pros seem to be living in community so they can be in a better position to sell their services. This is not all bad, but IMHO they didn't express the passion that keeps a movement like this vibrant.
Wow. I ran across your blog via a search for Shane Claiborne's prayer, but we live in Seattle and I see you were just in my backyard! We--me, my wife, and two kids--are very interested in cohousing or intentional community living. Did you meet anyone else at the conference with a (Christian) missional focus?
Joshua, too bad I didn't know about you before I went to Seattle - could have saved on a hotel :^)
I didn't meet anyone with a Christian missional focus. One of the things that interests me is that cohousing communities have many things in common with missional churches. Some of the same 'community glue' is present and required for either to work well. I have an unsubstantiated feeling that very few cohousing communities have committed Christian members. While they all value diversity, I see some minor evidence that Christians could be or are viewed as fundamentalists by cohousers. This is one of the main reasons I'm interested. I've been blessed to be in relation with many intelligent people who consider Christians to be 'nut jobs' and IMHO I've played a role to demonstrate that we are intelligent compassionate people. Besides - I like to be with other intelligent compassionate people and find them to be of many different faiths.
I wonder if Raines has any thoughts on the beliefs of cohousers?
Thanks Brian. I know there are some Christian cohousing communities (Bartimaeus for example, or of course the Catholic Worker communities) but I hear you about the "fundamentalist" problem. It's true that a lot of Christians are in fact intolerant, but then again there are a lot of Christians in general. I guess you get everything from Dick Cheney to Barack Obama, unfortunately.
Post a Comment