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collectively agree on how they should be used. Some, like Pioneer Valley, are rural. Others are
suburban, and even urban.

“A lot of cohousing is out in rural areas, but

we wanted to be in the city to be near
things,” says Janet Boys, 68, of Denver. She
and her husband, Don McGuire, 73, left

Philadelphia in August to move into the Aria
Cohousing Community, a former convent
close to Regis University in Colorado’s
capital. The convent’s dwindling community
of seven nuns vacated the building when

they could no longer maintain it, said Aria’s
Shared space: residents of Amherst community gather developer, Susan Powers of Urban Ventures
in their common house
LLC in Denver. The initial group of residents,

who in 2013 expressed interest in
transforming the building into a cohousing community, had a bit in common with the previous
tenants.

“They were a group of single women, empty-nesters, who each lived in a single-family home
and didn’t want to live alone anymore,”
Powers says. Aria, which opened in August,
now includes men and residents of every
age.

The self-determination of Aria’s founding
residents is a hallmark of cohousing, along
with clusters of homes or living spaces

gathered around shared public areas.

The heart of each community is the common
house, or a space, where group meals are

offered once or twice a week, together with Dig in: members of the Aria community work on their
activities and events. Houses are connected garden together (Aria Denver)
by pathways. Instead of a lawnmower in

every garage, there often are no attached garages. Cars are exiled to peripheral parking areas,
while a single, shared lawnmower suits the needs of everyone.

The common house is also where residents gather to make decisions about governance.

Cohousing communities are most commonly set up as homeowners’ associations, with

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