The best size and number of households seems to be one of the big challenges facing cohousing in America. Cohousing communities in Europe have shown over and again that the optimum size is not too big and not too small.

Create a community that is too big and an institutional feel and sensibility will result. Create a community that is too small, and it will become more like a large family, not a neighborhood of actively engaged households.

The temptation to use technology to make life more convenient, more practical, or just jazzier – whatever the cost – is always with us.

In our Nevada City cohousing community, we adopted online signups for common dinners. Previously, signups were on paper in the common house. I’d often stop by the common house at around 8 pm, when there would be three or four people hanging around near the signup book. There was considerable dialogue among us all, some of it dinner-related. “Are you coming to dinner tomorrow?” “Oh, I forgot to sign up on time.” “Don’t worry, I’m cooking and I haven’t shopped yet.”

People often ask me what I consider to be the biggest difference between American cohousing and Danish cohousing. As an architect, I think people are usually asking about architectural features. But there’s more to it than that. When I show Danish visitors American exercise rooms, they always wonder what the stationary bikes are. “You mean you pedal but you don’t go anywhere?”