Urban Cohousing

In the US (and around Copenhagen) cohousing is primarily built on the
urban fringe, suburban, rural land or in small towns near cities.
In these locations there is room for "town house" style layout
Typically each unit has a door that opens directly onto the pedestrian
(outdoor) street with some open spaces around the community.

Some people prefer a more urban location.  This page is intended to
highlight some cohousing communities that are located in urban
settings.

The first group of communities below maintain the townhouse layout
sufficiently compactly to be in an urban location.

The second group of communities below have units that share an entrance
and are built higher with units in an apartment style structure. The
Swedish model like cohousing - "kollektivhus" is often an apartment
building with the first floor and basement being common space and
suitable for urban areas.

There is a wide variety and many permutations.

Compact townhouse style urban communities:                         #units/#acres/#floors/#adults/#kids
Puget Ridge Cohousing           Seattle        Washington          23/2.5/57/?
Southside Park Cohousing        Sacramento     California          25/1.3/?/55/18

Apartment style urban communities:
Tacoma Village Cohousing        Washington     DC                  43/1.4/?/85/23
Swan's Market                   Oakland        California          20/0.3/?/32/3
BO-90 Cohousing                 Copenhagen     Denmark             ?/?/4/18/?
Fardknappen                     Stockholm      Sweden              43/0.25?/5/50/0   LINK FIXED 8/11 In Swedish with English section
     See also   Swedish National Cohousing Association 
Durham Central Park             Durham         North Carolina      24/0.5/4/37/?
Jamaica Plain Cohousing         Boston         Massachusetts       30?/0.9/3/58/13

Communities with a mix of townhouse and apartment style features:
Cambridge Cohousing             Cambridge      Massachusetts       41/1.5/2-4?/91/23/
Village Cohousing               Madison        Wisconsin           18/0.7/2-3/32/8
Metro Cohousing at Culver Way  St. Louis, Missouri                 44/1.5/?/?/?


Windsong Cohousing Community    Langley        British Columbia, Canada  34/2:5.8/2?/90/30
     I dont think Windsong really qualifies as an urban community but as a
     compact community with a glass covered pedestrian street that would
     work well in an urban setting I included it here.


The above communities are all of the traditional new construction,
(or major renovation) variety.  There is another way to do cohousing that is
particularly suited to urban areas called retrofit cohousing.  In this model
a community is developed gradually in existing housing.
See: Retrofit Cohousing

This page is maintained by Fred H. Olson fholson at cohousing.org
See also The Cohousing Network (extensive national WWW site)