The purpose of Strong NeighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More is to provide information, tools, and opinions on how to strengthen our neighborhoods. The one thing we can all affect in a positive proactive way is our immediate environment. What makes a neighborhood strong? What does my neighborhood need? This is what I hope you can find here.
In early 2004, I began blogging on self-organization and governance, particularly in cohousing communities, at Sociocracy.info. In 2020, I became frustrated that after 30 years of development in cohousing, you still had to earn more than the median income to afford units in most cohousing communities. There were a few hard-won subsidized units here and there but not nearly enough to meet demand. Cohousing was still a middle- to upper-middle-class movement. Not that it hasn’t tried to change that. But in the housing market, the construction industry, and town planning in the United States, there is almost no support for building homes for those earning less than the top half.
Writing about ways to self-govern a community became more frustrating as I realized that as much as cohousing was trying to build neighborhoods for diverse income and levels of wealth, it wasn’t happening. Before people could live in self-governed, strong neighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More, they had to have a neighborhood.
I set up a new blog, Affordable Cohousing,* and began researching methods of low-cost construction. As I wrote post after post, it quickly became clear that there were many ways to build low-cost housing
Shelterforce began in 1975 as a “how-to” publication for tenant activists. Over the years our focus expanded and we began to examine a wider range of place-based community-building issues. But we’ve always kept the goal of empowering people to make real change in their communities. We have a quarterly print magazine and a weekly newsletter. Shelterforce is the only independent, non-academic publication covering the worlds of community development, affordable housing, and neighborhood stabilization. Dedicated from the beginning to everyone working to empower and support low-income communities, Shelterforce provides a venue for conversations that need to be had—on topics from community planning... More and it had been done where it was allowed. Low-cost construction methods were and are ample and are used all over the world. Neither ideas, intentions, materials, nor construction methods were the problem.
Discriminatory Zoning Favors Expensive Housing
The problem in the United States is that zoning laws prohibit multi-household buildings, smaller lot sizes, and smaller homes in any of the areas where it makes sense to build them. Larger homes on larger lot sizes are effectively legislated. In most cities, you cannot build a Tiny House or even a small house that would be considered spacious in other parts of the world. Nor can you build two or three small houses on one large lot or multi-household buildings in almost any neighborhood. “Single-family homes” are preferred by builders and town councils alike. They produce higher profits on construction and their owners pay higher taxes.
The prime advantage of cohousing communities is that they are communities designed to be neighborhoods. Self-managed and self-governed communities of 25-30 households are designed to become neighborhoods of social cohesion and support. Over the last 30 years, cohousing has learned many lessons about community design and management. It has proven itself to be a viable model. Since these neighborhoods are designed and financed by prospective homeowners, however, it remains an option only for those who can afford large mortgage payments or pay cash. (Yes, some people can afford to pay cash for a $500,000 house.)
Broadening the Concept of a Strong Neighborhood
To emphasize the ability to develop strong neighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More wherever you live, I wanted to write about more than cohousing or even holding cohousing out as the ideal. It’s one strategy for building community. But what about designing and strengthening all neighborhoods to become communities? To make changes where you live now instead of dreaming of one over there someday. That’s what Strong NeighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More will be doing — researching and collecting resources for people to use to develop the neighborhoods they have now.
Strong Neighborhoods Are Egalitarian, Diverse, Inclusive, Connected
Strong neighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More are clusters of people living in egalitarian, diverse, inclusive, and connected communities. This is more than a housing ideal. It requires a change in understanding how we govern ourselves. How we live. How we view our neighbors.
There is much discussion after four years with a United States president who did not accept democracy and proclaimed that our democracy is imperiled. The basis of a democracy is that every citizen is equally important, their welfare and rights equally respected. We have national and local institutions that support a democratic government and many of us work in those institutions. But far too many proved incapable of resisting the will and ruthless tactics of an autocrat.
This was shocking for those Americans who believed in a dream that only some of us have accomplished. The experience of a ruthless, pathologically narcissistic, tyrant exposed the weaknesses of our civic society. We have become politically weak and unable to maintain control of our government, at all levels.
A radical statement, perhaps, but this is the danger of democracies. They depend on each citizen to defend their rights and promote the ideals that democratic governments are based on. When citizens are no longer listened to or considered, democracies die.
Strong Neighborhoods Depend on Neighbors
If democracy is intended to ensure the rights of each citizen, organizations and power need to be strong at the level of each citizen. The most immediate citizen base is the neighborhood. By building strong neighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More we enrich and strengthen ourselves individually. We can form incubators that provide comfort and security that is within our control. It takes a village. That is where we learn that each person is important.
Where Strong Neighborhoods Is Going
The website will develop in bits and pieces zigzagged together. I’m more interested in the development of ideas than presenting a final product all tidy and focused. Strong NeighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More is still transforming from previous incarnations and will undoubtedly continue to go through more. But it’s developing, just like your neighborhood will be when you make a commitment to form a community.
*Some posts still contain the name Affordable Cohousing, but you are in the right place for Strong NeighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More.
Except where otherwise noted, the statistics on Strong NeighborhoodsStrong neighborhoods have good communications, maintain supportive networks, and are self-organizing and resilient. More are from public sources like Statista, an independent, global source of statistics and data-related services for businesses, and the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes, and trends shaping the world.