research-l Mailing List: Re: California Cohousing Communities

[Betsy Morris (Betsy]

Hi Angela, 

Why not start broad, go with the overlap of IC and Coho directories and use your research to identify the clusters, including cohousing, within a spectrum of intentional communities?  We should have ways to verify categories and criteria, hopefully with statistically significant differences. 

I keep finding counter examples where at least 1 community in your list doesn't quite work from what I know of them. 

As an example - SRCC and Monan's Rill are both coops created around the same time in Santa Rosa.  Both were started by Quakers, but are not Quaker communities. both have added common house type space. LE Ecovillage is far more self-governing than San Mateo Ecovillage, which has 2 owners, the rest rent from the primary owners who own 7 of the units. 

LA Ecovillage is owned by its members as a coop plus land trust, although it had a nonprofit sponsor and one leader for many years (Lois Arkin), it operates more like cohousing now, more so than Petaluma Avenue Homes for example. That's owned by a nonprofit that is NOT governed by its residents, unlike say Golden Gate Cohousing. 

The concept of "no shared economy" would miss the co-householding at the Orchard - and FrogSong owns a commercial building and uses the rents to lower HOA fees.   Some criteria can be backed up experientially, but not others. (I find Independent incomes to be more generally descriptive actually than no shared economy, for example). 

Betsy Morris, PhD
Planning for Sustainable Communities
Berkeley, CA

510-842-6224
www.ebcoho.org

www.cohousingcoaches.com

www.betsymorris.com

On Wed, Mar 16, 2016 at 11:55 AM, Angela Sanguinetti <angelasanguinetti [at] gmail.com> wrote:

Hello Cohousing Research Network,

I am involved in some research regarding cohousing communities in California.  I am seeking feedback on our inclusion/exclusion criteria for identifying cohousing communities. 

We excluded communities based on the following: educational centers; focus on a particular religion/spiritual practice; exclusively queer/gay; single individual is leader; self-defined as eco-village, other IC type, or just IC broadly; senior cohousing also excluded because age-exclusivity would be a confounding variable in our particular study. 

First of all, what do you think about these criteria? The resultant list is below. Please let me know if you notice any communities missing or see any you think should be excluded.

All best,

Angela

Angela Sanguinetti, Ph.D.

Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA)

Behavioral Scientist, Consumer Energy Interfaces Lab at UC Davis

Director, Cohousing Research Network

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