From shared meals to shared tools, cohousing offers a vision of lower-cost, community-centered living. While that vision is taking hold in the UK, communities in the US face barriers that drive up costs and limit who can participate.
Cohousing residential communities are designed to foster neighborliness, encouraging practices like borrowing ingredients from neighbors, sharing occasional meals, and watching one another’s children. Cohousing is a “community intentionally designed with ample common spaces surrounded by private homes,” according to the Cohousing Association of the United States (CohoUS), a national nonprofit that promotes these types of neighborhoods.
As CohoUS Board President Laurie Frank explains, “You bring in architects who know how to build for people who connect. … You’re always crossing paths. An example is that parking is on the outskirts of the building, not right outside your door.”
Nationally, there are about 160 cohousing communities across the U.S., says Trish Becker-Hafnor, CohoUS’s executive director. Industry numbers are imprecise, but a cohousing community in Santa Cruz, California, estimates that around 13,000 people nationally and over 60,000 worldwide live in cohousing communities. These communities are typically structured legally as condominiums, though other structures such as cooperatives can be used...
Notes: Leo's notes: While traditionally costly in the U.S., emerging models that pair cohousing with tools like community land trusts or retrofit existing neighborhoods are beginning to lower barriers and expand access. Simply put, affordability is not just about unit cost, but about shared resources, reduced space needs, and social infrastructure. If integrated with proven affordability tools, cohousing could become a meaningful part of the “missing middle” solution — blending housing supply with stronger, more resilient communities...
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- - Volume: 26 - WEEK: 13 Date: 3/23/2026 9:21:01 PM -