Over the past week cohousing groups in Brooklyn, Chicago and Southeastern Pennsylvania, announced that they have secured sites or development partners.
Why is this so exciting? In short: most cohousing groups that don't have land secured fail. Most that do get site approval proceed to succeed. Getting a site "optioned" is the first big step on the path to change from the former to the latter category.
The groups are in:

• Brooklyn, NY: Brooklyn Cohousing
• Chicago, IL: Prairie Onion Cohousing
• West Grove, PA: Three Groves EcoVillage, spinning off from Concord EcoVillage

Much has been written about intangible benefits of living in Cohousing. Many anecdotal statements suggest the day-to-day cost savings are also possible. There is, however, almost no data-based information addressing changes in economic value for Cohousing compared to (superficially) similar condominium developments.

A cohouser at Jackson Place Cohousing (Seattle, WA), sent me a paper by James Mayhak. Mayhak recently graduated from the University of Washington with a degree in Urban Studies. His study compares appraisal data for Cohousing homes in the three City of Seattle Cohousing communities (see below) with nearby homes in non-Cohousing condominium complexes.

Dear Cohousers and Prospective Cohousers,

New Society Publishers is releasing the second edition of Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living in May. If you are a member of new or existing cohousing community that would like to plan a book signing, please let me know. Signings in May also allow us to promote the National Cohousing Conference in Seattle in June. Of course the most important job would be to make your efforts to create a new cohousing community successful. I’m fine planning a regular general cohousing presentation, but one way to offset the costs is to plan a book signing at your local bookstore. The publisher will pay $150 to the bookstore for hosting it, the bookstore will also have its own database to advertise your book signing, and they will help with the organizing it in general.

On Friday, Feb 27, some well-known cohousing activists met to discuss the Cohousing Movement. Recordings from the call are now available. This was in one of many recorded calls that we'll be posting. While our two previous calls were public calls, allowing up to 1000 people to call and listen in, this was a private conference call that we've decided to make public. Making use of this form of information - online audio recordings - can be a compelling way to engage with information. Its actually much easier to produce than text, as people are more forgiving of grammatical errors, incomplete sentences, and run-on sets of ideas.

Where does cohousing fit into our country’s agenda for change? Over the last several months, an informal group of burning souls has been raising this question. They believe that cohousing ought to be front and center of the conversation around taking responsibility, grassroots community building, a rejection of consumerism, and environmental sustainability. In short, they feel that cohousing embodies many of the values that the country is now moving towards, and that it is an opportunity to raise cohousing’s visibility.

A Campaign

The inauguration of Barack Obama as our 44th President is one of two indicators that dramatic change is upon us! His election signals a new direction for our country and the rise of hope by many who felt left out and in the wilderness in recent years. The other major change is the economic meltdown and accompanying recession, if not depression. Critical immediate results have been millions of people losing their jobs, record numbers of home foreclosures, severe tightening of credit, diminution of savings and investment for retirement, growing difficulty of middle and lower income families to meet their needs, and inability of food programs to feed the increasing number of hungry people across the country. Does this changed landscape have implications for cohousing communities and the cohousing movement? What might we do to respond to these challenges?

The old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times” is upon us. For the cohousing movement it is as Charlie Dickens would have said the “best and the worst of times.” The housing market is at its worst and the economy is not doing well. It is a hard time to think about housing as a solution to life’s challenges let alone a way to “save the world one neighborhood at a time.” It is times like this that small splinter movements like cohousing can get lost and buried.

But it is the best of times for cohousing in that our awareness of the need to sustain our culture and our planet are at a high point. The economic downturn is forcing a break with the American addiction to materialism and a rethinking of values. Global warming and high gas prices are having significant impacts on our society, although it still isn’t a fast enough impact for some of us.