A new cohousing community under development in Portland, OR
Not only is this advocate very articulate about our movement, but the podcast also highlights how advanced the west coast is in terms of offering cohousing and eco-community living options.
It’s kind of upsetting . . . there must be a hundred such communities to choose from between Seattle and San Diego, but maybe thirty (at the most) between Portland, Maine and Miami. There’s still not one in my state, New Jersey. One in Pennsylvania (Hundred Fold Farm) with two more hopefully in the works (Rachel Carson Ecovillage and Altair Ecovillage). About ten in Massachusetts, about ten in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area. Not many more, despite the fact that twice as many people live on the east coast as on the west coast.
(Unfortunately in the podcast the interviewee talks up the same old delusions about how “the community comes together years before construction and move-in.” It’s rarely true. Until there is something tangible to see and think about in a very concrete way [it’s actually happening! the pricing is known! a model is visitable!] people just come and go; few fully commit to doing the work necessary for the project to come to fruition. The cohousing movement needs to get more realistic about the “build communitarian relations beforehand and design the development cooperatively” trope that disappoints so many of those who get involved.)
