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<br />.project, points out that "the very process
<br />of working closely with a core group of
<br />future residents means that, as you are
<br />creating the project, you are creating a
<br />market."
<br />Will it fly?
<br />cohousing is not, of course, a new con-
<br />cept. One finds its roots in 19th century
<br />utopian communities like the short-lived
<br />Brook Farm in New England, and in
<br />attempts by early feminists and other
<br />reformers to collectivize kitchens and
<br />nurseries. For a long time, however, as
<br />UCLA professor Dolores Hayden points
<br />out in Redesigning the American Dream,
<br />the U.S. housing industry has been de-
<br />signingwiththe traditional nuclear family
<br />in mind, and ignoring the needs of two-
<br />career couples, single parents, and the
<br />elderly.
<br />Today, architects and planners like
<br />Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-
<br />Zybeck, intheir designs for neotraditional
<br />towns, and Peter Calthorpe, with his
<br />concept of pedestrian pockets or "post-
<br />industrial suburbs," are addressing is-
<br />sues of community and of changing
<br />household structure.
<br />A number of organizations across the
<br />country are also developing models for
<br />cooperative living that are similar to
<br />cohousing. One such group is the four-
<br />year-old Shared Living Resource Center
<br />in Berkeley, founded by planner and
<br />architect Kenneth Norwood. The group
<br />has developed a prototype called the
<br />village cluster, which, in its concept of
<br />individual houses grouped around a
<br />communal building, is similar to co-
<br />housing. The center is currently prepar-
<br />ing a feasiblity study for its first project,
<br />a low-income development in Watson-
<br />ville, California.
<br />Its advocates take pains to dissociate
<br />cohousing from the image of a 1960s-
<br />style commune. McCamant and Durrett
<br />make clear that Danish cohousing is sim-
<br />ply housing, unencumbered by any po-
<br />litical,spiritual, economic, or social agenda.
<br />"This is not a return to Birkenstock san-
<br />dals and Indian-print skirts," says Steve
<br />Mabley, a member of a cohousing group
<br />in Washington, D.C. "This is a move-
<br />ment of homeowners."
<br />Make that middle-class homeowners.
<br />Although cohousing has obvious poten-
<br />tialfor affordable housing (just over half
<br />the members of the Muir Commons group
<br />have received low-interest city loans for
<br />down payments, most of the U.S. projects
<br />will be market-rate. As developers are
<br />discovering, the money saved by build-
<br />ing smaller houses and fewer roads is
<br />generally absorbed by the common house
<br />and landscaped outdoor spaces.
<br />Some planners remain unconvinced
<br />of cohousing's wide appeal. "It's likely to
<br />appeal only to a very select group, who
<br />are willing to live cooperatively," says
<br />Robert Burchell, a professor of planning
<br />at the Center for Urban Policy Researc}~.
<br />at Rutgers University. And, he adds,
<br />"cohousing groups maybe looking to get
<br />more from lifestyle than lifestyle can
<br />give. You can't easily recreate the kind of
<br />cohesive communities that once existed
<br />when people lived near their extended
<br />families and worked close to home."
<br />Meanwhile, others suggest that chang-
<br />ing demographics may make all the dif-
<br />ference. "Thetypicalfamily-twoparents,
<br />a couple of kids-is now the slowest
<br />growing type of household in the U.S.,"
<br />says planner Lloyd Bookout, a senior
<br />research associate at the Urban Land
<br />Institute. "We're seeing a tremendous
<br />increase in nontraditional households of
<br />single parents, single people, unrelated
<br />elderly people, and so on."
<br />For these groups, and others, cohousing
<br />could well be an alternative.
<br />Nancy Levinson is a writer and architect in
<br />Worcester, Massachusetts; she is the New Eng-
<br />land correspondent for Architectural Record.
<br />Residents of a Danish cohousing community relax after dinner in the common house.
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