Do your friends and family ask you this question? I get it all the time. Who are these (fill in the blank) progressive, risk-taker, entrepreneurial, edgy, idealistic, wild bunch of people, anyway??

To begin answering this question, the Board of Coho/US completed a survey of 80 cohousing communities and their residents. Here is some of what was found:

• Community life & personal benefits:
• Having everyday connections and committed, neighborly relationships are really important.
• Easy socializing, and especially shared meals and other activities are basic to overall good cohousing communities.
• There is a direct correlation between common meals and work sharing and foreclosure rates! Greater participation in both happened in communities with fewer foreclosures.
• Family life:
• Multi-generational communities helped provide child-friendly places that parents really appreciate.

As one of the co-founders of Daybreak Cohousing, I spent a lot of time in the early stages researching what communities who had come before us had done to build their communities, both physically and as people. The Get It Built Workshop by Katie McCamant and Rick Mockler of Cohousing Partners gave me a solid overview and foundation in the overall process and I highly recommend it. I found a wealth of generosity and information on Cohousing_L and in talking with folks in our local communities here in Portland, Cascadia Commons, Trillium Hollow and Penninsula Park Commons.

I think the title of this blog is an interesting question and one worthy of research. A good research design could compare a range of health and social indicators for people living in cohousing with a matched group of people from similar social and economic backgrounds who do not live in cohousing. Would there be different levels of physical and mental health rates over time? Would people in cohousing be healthier?

Ruminations from the Research Room!
As with any new move-in we're still arranging the furniture, but it's personally great to have a place to put things at last. Co-host David Entin and I met face-to-face at his home at Rocky Hill Coho, along with Craig Ragland and Raines Cohen (my sweetie) where we got up to speed on each other's visions of this room and coho research in general. We got a preview of the public unveiling of the Cohousing Census 2008 by Craig. Great stuff! and a good geography lesson for everyone involved. (Hint, there's MAPS!)

I'm also looking forward to sharing my interests and findings you, including a full brain dump on frequently asked questions from the dozen plus academic researchers I've had a occasion to hear from over the years.