I have always wondered why more people don't choose their housing location to be within walking difference of friends and family. Makes so much sense! Dolores Hayden writes about families going together to buy/create a "Third Place" that they could gather for dinner in the 1800's in her book Grand Domestic Revolution. The women figured out that they needed to find a way to lessen their cooking duties if they were to have time to organize to get the vote.
It sounds like you're describing / evolving into cohousing - neighborhoods with common third spaces and more intensive/democratic governance structures. There's a whole like literature and community around this idea https://www.cohousing.org/.
From my point of view this is probably the ideal living setup for people with pets, kids, etc.
Except for one sentence that mentions "a neighborhood within a neighborhood" ignores the fact that there already is a great neighborhood here that dates back to before tech came to Oakland. What is your end goal here? You speak about "starting" a neighborhood. This rhetoric erases those who have lived here before you moved and is honestly kind of disrespectful. I know this is specific to this coliving group but I can't get past the small implications in language here
Our community house in Pittsburgh is also building good momentum and evolving towards that direction. Very interesting to watch how community houses expand and mature into quasi neighborhood. <3
“Eric, we’ve been listening to you talk about social infrastructure and how important it is, and we realize that the design that we’re going to propose for this competition is going to be right in line with that. We have this idea for something we’re calling a resilience center.” And I said, “Wow, that sounds amazing. who wouldn’t want a resilience center? Can you tell me about it.”
And they said, “Okay. So this resilience center is going to be a nice building that we’ll put in a vulnerable neighborhood in a town in Connecticut, and we see it as a prototype that we could build in cities all over the country, and it will be open as much as possible. It will be spacious. It will have flexible use s. It will be staffed by personnel who are aggressively welcoming, let’s say. Their job is really to make everyone feel like they’re welcome all the time. And we know that very young people and very old people are most at risk and most need resilience at home because they might not be as mobile as other parts of the population, so we’re going to have all kinds of special programming for kids, things like story time in the morning. And since we know that kids come with caretakers, parents, or grandparents, or sitters, we’ll do something for them too. Maybe we’ll give them access to Wifi and computers. And we really see this resilience center as an amazing new institution that could strengthen people who live in every vulnerable part of the country.”
And I said to them, “Wow, that’s an amazing idea.” Because I’m a professor and I’m used to telling people first, that their ideas are amazing, and then I said, “Have you ever heard of a library?”
This sounds super fun. I love the idea of expanding a communities boundaries and making the community a little less insular.
How do you all think about interactions with the existing community in the area, i.e. the neighborhood that exists independently of Radish, the people (if any) who have been living there for a long time before you all moved there? Gathering your friends to the same neighborhood seems great, but making NEW friends and enriching an existing community at the same time seems event better.
I bet it looks a lot like Groundfloor! I've been a member there for a few months and it certainly feels like a home away from home. https://groundfloorclub.com/places/
It's part co-working, part community space. It's ultimately a social club but I feel they stand by their values of accessibility because I'm able to bring my kid around and the price is super reasonable
This is great! I do have one comment though. It looks like these folks are discovering the same structure as the social clubs of Europe or the country clubs of America. Have a private members-only space with slightly baroque entry requirements that requires social connection and standing with current members. I struggle to see the difference between the Commons and, say, the University Club of Palo Alto (https://www.ucpaloalto.com/). I worry that these setups will become insular groups that's difficult to access.
I have always wondered why more people don't choose their housing location to be within walking difference of friends and family. Makes so much sense! Dolores Hayden writes about families going together to buy/create a "Third Place" that they could gather for dinner in the 1800's in her book Grand Domestic Revolution. The women figured out that they needed to find a way to lessen their cooking duties if they were to have time to organize to get the vote.
It sounds like you're describing / evolving into cohousing - neighborhoods with common third spaces and more intensive/democratic governance structures. There's a whole like literature and community around this idea https://www.cohousing.org/.
From my point of view this is probably the ideal living setup for people with pets, kids, etc.
Except for one sentence that mentions "a neighborhood within a neighborhood" ignores the fact that there already is a great neighborhood here that dates back to before tech came to Oakland. What is your end goal here? You speak about "starting" a neighborhood. This rhetoric erases those who have lived here before you moved and is honestly kind of disrespectful. I know this is specific to this coliving group but I can't get past the small implications in language here
Our community house in Pittsburgh is also building good momentum and evolving towards that direction. Very interesting to watch how community houses expand and mature into quasi neighborhood. <3
Super interesting to see the budgeting scenarios. Love this reframe from co-living -> neighborhood.
“Eric, we’ve been listening to you talk about social infrastructure and how important it is, and we realize that the design that we’re going to propose for this competition is going to be right in line with that. We have this idea for something we’re calling a resilience center.” And I said, “Wow, that sounds amazing. who wouldn’t want a resilience center? Can you tell me about it.”
And they said, “Okay. So this resilience center is going to be a nice building that we’ll put in a vulnerable neighborhood in a town in Connecticut, and we see it as a prototype that we could build in cities all over the country, and it will be open as much as possible. It will be spacious. It will have flexible use s. It will be staffed by personnel who are aggressively welcoming, let’s say. Their job is really to make everyone feel like they’re welcome all the time. And we know that very young people and very old people are most at risk and most need resilience at home because they might not be as mobile as other parts of the population, so we’re going to have all kinds of special programming for kids, things like story time in the morning. And since we know that kids come with caretakers, parents, or grandparents, or sitters, we’ll do something for them too. Maybe we’ll give them access to Wifi and computers. And we really see this resilience center as an amazing new institution that could strengthen people who live in every vulnerable part of the country.”
And I said to them, “Wow, that’s an amazing idea.” Because I’m a professor and I’m used to telling people first, that their ideas are amazing, and then I said, “Have you ever heard of a library?”
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/palaces-for-the-people/transcript/
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Reading your article I recalled this book and podcast episode - hope it nurtures the reflections and conversations :)
This sounds super fun. I love the idea of expanding a communities boundaries and making the community a little less insular.
How do you all think about interactions with the existing community in the area, i.e. the neighborhood that exists independently of Radish, the people (if any) who have been living there for a long time before you all moved there? Gathering your friends to the same neighborhood seems great, but making NEW friends and enriching an existing community at the same time seems event better.
"Creating a neighborhood without coliving?"
I bet it looks a lot like Groundfloor! I've been a member there for a few months and it certainly feels like a home away from home. https://groundfloorclub.com/places/
It's part co-working, part community space. It's ultimately a social club but I feel they stand by their values of accessibility because I'm able to bring my kid around and the price is super reasonable
This is great! I do have one comment though. It looks like these folks are discovering the same structure as the social clubs of Europe or the country clubs of America. Have a private members-only space with slightly baroque entry requirements that requires social connection and standing with current members. I struggle to see the difference between the Commons and, say, the University Club of Palo Alto (https://www.ucpaloalto.com/). I worry that these setups will become insular groups that's difficult to access.
> And she often makes the point that “come by anytime!” is equivalent to “please don’t come.”
If this is what this signals, I dislike that implication.
I truly want my friends to be able to come by ANYTIME and knock on my door.
I wonder if there's a better way to signal that...