Living in Cohousing

The number of cohousing communities is increasing impressively. This map is based on the data from a recent census conducted by Betsy Morris, Ph.D., Coho/U.S.'s research director. As shown, built cohousing communities in the U.S. numbered 113 at mid-year. Other results of that census can be found in the Research Topic Room. (Registration as a member is required, although it is free.)

After the November 2007 Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo, I visited three “collective housing” projects in Tokyo with conference host Akemi Miyauchi. At that conference I first heard of what the Japanese call “collective housing” – high-density housing projects with various kinds of common space – but it sure sounded much like cohousing to me.

As cohousing increasingly becomes a global phenomenon, I've become curious to learn how different countries mold the concept to reflect their cultural, financial and regulatory realities. I learned that firsthand after I had a chance to see three cohousing projects in Japan recently.

After attending the Japanese Ecovillage Conference in Tokyo in late November 2007, I visited the 28-unit Kankanmori no Kaze Cohousing project in Tokyo with two friends, Giovanni Ciarlo from Huehuecoyotl Ecovillage in Mexico and Akemi Miyauchi, one of our wonderful conference hosts. Giovanni and I had given presentations about intentional communities at the conference, and we were eager to see similar projects in Japan. There appear to be relatively few intentional communities there, and so far perhaps only a total of four cohousing communities – depending on how one defines the term.

I used to have contingency plans for where I wanted to live in another five years. For a while, it was New Zealand, then upstate New York, then a small town in western Colorado that doesn’t feel the pace of a fresh-air-challenged metro area like Denver. Where would I try to be comfortable next? Where would I try to meet as many needs as possible with a minimum amount of stress?

While community living is not a new phenomenon, one must acknowledge that with the success of cohousing, the idea is being spread for the first time on a global scale. If globalization tends to destroy cultural variation, the flexibility of cohousing has allowed it to resist that trend and to adapt to people’s needs in different cultural contexts. A look at how cohousing is being implemented in Europe demonstrates that idea.