As cohousing increasingly becomes a global phenomenon, I've become curious to learn how different countries mold the concept to reflect their cultural, financial and regulatory realities. I learned that firsthand after I had a chance to see three cohousing projects in Japan recently.

After attending the Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo in late November 2007, I visited the 28-unit Kankanmori no Kaze Cohousing project in Tokyo with two friends, Giovanni Ciarlo from Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Mexico and Akemi Miyauchi, one of our wonderful conference hosts. Giovanni and I had given presentations about intentional communities at the conference, and we were eager to see similar projects in Japan. There appear to be relatively few intentional communities there, and so far perhaps only a total of four cohousing communities – depending on how one defines the term.

While community living is not a new phenomenon, one must acknowledge that with the success of cohousing, the idea is being spread for the first time on a global scale. If globalization tends to destroy cultural variation, the flexibility of cohousing has allowed it to resist that trend and to adapt to people’s needs in different cultural contexts. A look at how cohousing is being implemented in Europe demonstrates that idea.

How do people in cohousing create traditions? How do we mark the major life events of our members, such as births, coming-of-age, marriages and deaths? How do we celebrate community events, such as groundbreaking or community anniversaries? How about birthdays, new jobs or people moving in or moving out?

Chuck Durrett, along with his wife Katie McCamant, popularized the Danish concept of cohousing in this country with the publication of their 1988 book. Here Chuck offers an open letter about his personal experiences in avoiding a corrosive aspect of living in community.