The Carved Block: Co-ops, gardens, community etc.

Mt. Eva?

On my walk home from filling raised beds with soil at the Nederland Community Garden I run into my landlord, who asks, “Can I talk to you about something?” I appreciate the solicitation for “consent to conversation”, an oft-ignored courtesy which results in an accessible discussion for both parties. When neglected, people often find themselves in conversations they are not physically, emotionally, or mentally prepared to have (e.g. have to pee, need to deal with urgent child issue, better to read the email first).

Anyway, my landlord shares that her parents lost their housing in Boulder and need to move into the unit that my housemates and I currently occupy! As I reckon, month-to-month leases disproportionately benefit renters, who typically need to move more frequently than landlords need to evict tenants. Sometimes it goes in the other direction...That said, this comes at a great time! I am heading to Minnesota at the beginning of July, so I will move everything into storage at the end of June.

Initially I was disappointed that I will not get to see the benefits of my labor at the community garden. But after greater consideration, I realized that this type of community infrastructure is uniquely appropriate for managing such turnover: another volunteer can take over my beds where I left off with little effort aside from watering, weeding, and harvesting. Looking back, my past two years have been dominated by this pattern. Before I left Boulder in March, 2018 (boreal spring), I planted a handful of daikon seeds and garlic cloves, which former housemates harvested later that summer. In June, 2018 (austral winter) I harvested buckets of potatoes and kale carefully tended by other gardeners over the past growing season. In November, 2018 (austral spring), I turned the soil and planted potatoes for the next harvesters! Here I am in boreal summer 2019 planting seeds…

It is worthwhile to consider this idea on both a literal and metaphorical level. Somewhere in the New Testament we hear that, “as you sow, so shall you reap” (or similarly, as my godmother Patti likes to say, “he who shall, so shall he who”), which applies generally in situations when our current actions have future consequences. There are notable exceptions: our collective climate issues are mostly the result of the actions of previous generations, while current and future generations will suffer the consequences and be tasked with solving the underlying problems when it is already too late to avoid the bulk of the damage.

However, there is an emerging trend related to the accelerating pace of change that has not been at play to the same extent in the past. We have an intuitive sense for this phenomenon when we try to keep up with the newest Apple iPhone, but this is a general process summarized in the specific case of Moore’s law, which simply observes that the number of transistors in an integrated circuit doubles about every two years. That is, we should be thinking about technology as a “non-linear” phenomenon, in contrast to folks like Thomas Malthus, who assumed that the rate of technology production (in his case, agriculture) is constant. Here I am definitely not championing the agricultural developments of the 20th century. Norman Borlaug himself can tell you why that is foolish:

“There can be no permanent progress in the battle against hunger until the agencies that fight for increased food production and those that fight for population control unite in a common effort.”

“It's a free society. But don't tell the world that we can feed the present population without chemical fertilizer. That's when this misinformation becomes destructive.”

More importantly for us as working people is that we are likely to have many careers within a single life, whereas our parents maybe had two, and our grandparents one. In addition to being uncomfortable, this process has logistical consequences if the next boom is not located in one's current home region. Willingness to move across the country for work will inevitably become an important aspect of employment.

Economists are fairly unanimous on this point: economic "progress" benefits society much more than it hurts society, but utmost care must be taken to ensure a smooth transition for those affected by change with generous policies like unemployment benefits and job training. For example, coachmen and grooms displaced by the invention of the automobile were probably annoyed at having to learn a new trade, but few would argue that we should mandate a return to an equestrian civilization (although it's anyone's guess why we are attempting to "bring back" miserable coal mining jobs).

Despite the fact that economic change generally benefits society more than it hurts society, there exists a strong legal preference for homeownership over renting that stifles economic mobility. In the United States, the mortgage interest deduction is a government handout for those folks who pay a mortgage, but cannot be claimed by renters. This is one of the most regressive taxes on the books in the United States, taking money from renters and giving it to well-resourced homeowners. During the long life of this subsidy, houses became not just homes, but investments, propped up disproportionately by regressive taxes paid by renters. The Atlantic has proven exceptionally willing to publish reports and opinions highlighting why this policy is shameful and terrible. Beyond the scope of the rental/owner market lives the housing cooperative.

I (and others) propose that cooperative housing is a creative solution for managing lives that are increasingly transient. This transience arises from a number of factors including education, employment, housing opportunities, intimate relationships, recent state abortion legislation etc. Housing cooperatives often fall into what T.S. Elliot referred to as, “systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.” They are especially well-suited to manage the financial and community aspects of housing.

Purchasing housing can be frustrating, not only due to the sheer magnitude of market-rate costs and the clandestine ways homeowners keep these costs high, but due to unexpected costs, market failures, and barriers to entry. Unexpected costs arise in the rental market especially due to the existence of long-term leases, which may attempt to align with the academic calendar in college towns but could not realistically attempt to align with employment patterns in non-college towns. An unexpected change in job that requires moving to a new home immediately can easily turn into a $1000+ fee on making that change. These types of contracts do nothing to grease the economic engine, instead imposing costs that limit mobility and discourage efficient allocation of labor resources. Security deposits withheld by unreasonable landlords leave renters few options to dispute the decision. In the housing market, a major obstacle is the down payment, which one could argue is fair. Credit scores also exclude folks from the housing market, especially those who are not financially literate or do not have a credit card. (this is a hastily hashed-together list)

A housing cooperative is uniquely situated to weather such storms: with a critical mass of occupants, the departure of one member (or a delayed rent payment) does not impose financial hardships on the house for months or even years down the road (depending on the size of the co-op). In a larger co-op (20+), a month-to-month lease is generally sufficient, whereas in a smaller co-op a longer lease would better protect the house. Any length of time between 1 and 12 months is fine by me: I like the idea of a mutually-agreed-upon length of time between you and your community (e.g. 1, 3, 6, 9, 12 months); this is how a contract should work. I think one reason renters get stuck with the standard year lease is that rental properties tend to operate as an oligopoly partially insulated from market forces.

Homeowners have plenty of reasons to prefer living next to other homeowners, such as the ability to build long-term relationships. In addition to sharing the occasional Saturday afternoon beverage, neighbors participate in a handful of overlapping activities: trash and recycling, snow shoveling, leaf raking etc. as well as a number of loose agreements surrounding noise, guests, behavior etc. These activities benefit from cooperation: if a resident blows their leaves onto a neighbor’s lawn there will be conflict; if a resident’s dog barks through the night there will be conflict…

Housing cooperatives can add structure to these shared activities and agreements. I recall an experience working through an outdoor rat infestation in the compost pile at the Chrysalis cooperative in Boulder. I reached out to the neighbor to ask whether they had received any complaints about the rats in our compost since we share an alleyway. In our discussion, the representative expressed concerns that the high turnover at our house rendered a consistent neighborly relationship impossible. Since the neighbor had our house email address on file (that goes to every resident of the house), such a relationship was actually possible! In contrast, a house of renters not living in a cooperative housing arrangement would likely turn over within 1-2 years, and neighbors would have no way to contact each new house. Housing cooperatives are notoriously terrible at keeping records, however, so guidelines that incentivize or mandate the maintenance of records including neighbor contact information and past agreements (e.g. no accumulation of unprotected compost outdoors) would be useful.

Minneapolis’ intentional community ordinance is a generous piece of housing legislation that allows residents to exceed zoning limits with few additional requirements aside from an application. By offering financial and emotional incentives to residents (e.g. lower rent, autonomy, continuity), cities such as Minneapolis have a tremendous opportunity to bring renters to the table and come to further agreements that would benefit the community such as (1) the record-keeping requirements suggested above, (2) limits on vehicle ownership, or (3) other socially-desirable outcomes (e.g. energy efficiency, xeriscaping, drug policies).

In general, cooperative arrangements are uniquely capable of smoothing over the transience that is a necessary part of our lives. A community garden can maintain the continuity required for food production, even when our housing cycles do not align with the growing season. A housing cooperative can address the concerns homeowners typically express about renters by holding everyone to a set of community agreements. In closing, I should point out that many of the inspired coordinators of community gardens or cooperative houses would disagree. An idea that is often tossed around in such circles is that we need folks who will “stick around”, who can “commit.” In a world whose rate of change is increasing, we need to find ways to maintain community in the face of change. Community infrastructure has the potential to invite temporary residents to “plug in” during their time in the area, and function in the same ways that a long-term resident would.

Mud Lake Open Space

Continental Divide from James Peak, facing North

Would ya just look at that cornice!

This valley trends northwest-southeast. Strong aspect control is visible between the slopes on the left and right: forested northeast-facing slope, bare southwest-facing slope. Shading of the northeast-facing slope is probably more important than aspect (the polar vs. equatorial orientation of the slope) in creating the difference.