Living arrangements designed to encourage social interaction and provide shared facilities can lower the cost of living and build more friendly, supportive neighborhoods.

In a piece for Strong Towns, Emma Avery describes the potential of ‘cohousing:’ housing arrangements with shared amenities that bring down housing costs for residents and create more opportunities for social interactions.
Residents of cohousing projects, Avery explains, “own their private units, but share extensive common spaces. They commit to regular community activities, like meals, and manage the building together.”
Avery highlights an example from Vancouver, where a group of residents joined with a local developer to build their dream communal community. “Over several years, Happy Cities worked with Our Urban Village (formerly called Tomo House) and the design team to help create a super social building — and then to measure whether residents really did feel more connected after moving into their new home.” Results from resident surveys showed a dramatic reduction in loneliness and isolation and an increase in social connections between neighbors.
Noting the barriers to building this type of housing model, Avery argues that cities should make it easier to develop cohousing. “This means offering public land for affordable, socially connected housing; legalizing more density citywide; providing incentives to encourage social design features and offset the costs; and more.” Bringing social connection back into housing developments and neighborhoods can create more sustainable development patterns, help address the housing crisis, and alleviate the growing ‘loneliness epidemic.’
FULL STORY: Can Cohousing Solve the Housing Crisis and Loneliness Epidemic?

Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage
Trump deemed the landmark civil rights agreement “illegal DEI and environmental justice policy.”

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees
More than a century ago, San Francisco mobilized to house thousands of residents displaced by the 1906 earthquake. Could their strategy offer a model for the present?

In Both Crashes and Crime, Public Transportation is Far Safer than Driving
Contrary to popular assumptions, public transportation has far lower crash and crime rates than automobile travel. For safer communities, improve and encourage transit travel.

Report: Zoning Reforms Should Complement Nashville’s Ambitious Transit Plan
Without reform, restrictive zoning codes will limit the impact of the city’s planned transit expansion and could exclude some of the residents who depend on transit the most.

Judge Orders Release of Frozen IRA, IIJA Funding
The decision is a victory for environmental groups who charged that freezing funds for critical infrastructure and disaster response programs caused “real and irreparable harm” to communities.
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