By Sterling Newberry At various times, we at Daybreak Cohousing have felt the strain of so much work to do in developing our future home. We realized early on that we needed to be especially conscious of building in pure social time as a balance to all our work, and to ensure that our extended… Read More

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… Read More

The Great Depression, probably not, but we sure have a mess on our hands. On Sunday, October 5th In Fresno, CA the Cohousing Partners and McCamant and Durrett Architects (MDA), and an awesome cohousing group celebrated the grand opening of La Querencia cohousing among hundreds of well wishers, under glorious blue skies and next door… Read More

By Diana Leafe Christian If a cohousing community uses the word “ecovillage” in its name, is it really an ecovillage? What does that mean, anyway? Today I got an email from a cofounder of a cohousing project in the Northeast. She wrote, “Can you tell me how a community gets to use ‘ecovillage’ as part… Read More

An acquaintance of mine, Chris Zimmerman, owns and operates a couple of assisted-care facilities in Alameda, California. He inherited one at age 23 and subsequently built a second one. He’s now 60, and despite the limitations of an assisted care environment, he has developed astute theories about seniors and elders. Like many observers of the… Read More

Diana Leafe Christian What happens when a cohousing community changes in values, lifestyle, and “community culture” over time? And how might this affect you as an a new incoming member? I have a good friend who lives with her young son in a cohousing community she helped to start. When she and the other founders… Read More

By Diana Leafe Christian “The results of this water test are enough to make the hair on the back of anyone’s neck stand up!” the scientist at the testing lab told my friend. Soon after she bought a home in a brand-new cohousing community, the weather turned cold. She and her neighbors turned on the… Read More

Cohousing is a hoot – it really is. When I walk onto the site after a hard day at work and chat with a couple of the 37 kids, or see cutie one-year-old August smiling in his mother’s arms, well, it makes my life worth living. When I walk into the common house an hour… Read More

By Diana Leafe Christian If you’re looking for a forming cohousing community, learn to “read between the lines” in directory listings and websites. • I observed in my book Creating a Life Together that only about 10 percent of forming intentional community groups succeed, and about 90 percent fail. And while the statistics for cohousing… Read More

The best size and number of households seems to be one of the big challenges facing cohousing in America. Cohousing communities in Europe have shown over and again that the optimum size is not too big and not too small. Create a community that is too big and an institutional feel and sensibility will result…. Read More

By Diana Leafe Christian Friday night (7/25), I gave a talk at the “Community Seeker’s Fair” which kicked off the NICA Gathering here in Portland (described below). I talked about characteristics of people who tend to do well in community: confidence and assertiveness, humility (they’re not mutually exclusive), a willingness to pitch in and work,… Read More

By Diana Leafe Christian This blog entry is in response to Craig’s Forum comment on June 4th in the “Researching Your Community” Forum about “Do-ers” and “Be-ers” in cohousing. I think most cohousers are good-hearted, compassionate people. And I have a working hypothesis that cohousers (and people in intentional communities in general) apply compassion in… Read More