Cohousing: Bridging The Neighbor Gap

"To help bridge 'the neighbor gap,' a growing number of architects and planners have incorporated opportunities for friendly interaction into the physical planning of a community. [Cohousing] carries the premise of casual contact among neighbors several steps further...residents collect their mail and park their cars in the same place...they also prepare dinner and eat together several nights a week...Another premise of cohousing is that the process by which a community is created is as important as what is created. Instead of simply buying finished houses, cohousing residents act as their own developer...The first cohousers were dual-income families looking for better child care and the ability to share evening meal preparation after a long, hectic workday...What these families wanted did not exist in the housing market. They had to create it themselves, amid much skepticism...They also encountered much resistance from local building permit-granting bodies."

Thanks to Abhijeet Chavan