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Cooperative Housing
(Tuesday, 01 July 2008) Written by greeniac121212
This past weekend, a friend and I went to visit Heartbeat Collective, a co-op house in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. We helped them work on a wall they are building out of natural materials, and, as we worked, we got to hear about their co-op and some of their visions for the future. One man talked about how he would some day like to be a part of his dream collective (one that doesn't yet exist) that owns an entire street of houses, all of which would be co-op houses and promote urban agriculture and other environmental initiatives.

Whenever I visit a co-op, I think about how it is both similar to and different from the co-op where I live. I also like to consider how it compares to my ideal co-op, even though I don't have all the details of that "perfect dream" work out yet. I'm especially interested in how the culture of co-ops promotes environmental, social and economic sustainability.

One practical aspect of co-op life is that there are more people living together than would normally live in one house. On all of the carbon-footprint-calculating websites I have checked out (such as http://www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/calculator/, The Nature Conservancy's carbon footprint calculator), one of the first questions the website asks you is how many people live in your household. This fact alone is important in determining how efficient your use of resources is.

Co-ops come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. Co-ops on my college campus range from 10 to 30 people, while the largest cooperative housing development in the world (Co-op City, in the Bronx) has a population of 55,000. Some co-ops save energy by cooking together, living in close quarters to cut down on space heating and lighting, and engaging in other environmental practices that require even more effort, such as growing some of their own food, using alternative sources of energy, etc.

I'm interested in any visions Greeniacs may have of cooperative communities and how the energy and spirit of co-op living can best be filtered into giving back to the earth, or at least treading lightly upon her. Any ideas?
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Comments (2)
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1. 07-07-2008 05:20
These relocalization and post-carbon groups look AWESOME! I like this model, because it involves people on a large scale without forcing them to become a part of a small, tight community that might feel stifling to them. Co-op life is not necessarily for everyone, but there are other ways to communally support local economies, and this looks like a really good way.
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greeniac121212
2. 03-07-2008 11:16
There is a larger scale community action plan that some towns have undertaken, check out http://www.willitseconomiclocalization.org/ 
It's very interesting!
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greeniac24

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