Archive for the ‘News Articles’ Category
Friday, May 9th, 2008
If you are new here, you may want to subscribe to the community buzz via email:
EcoVillage at Ithaca is helping set up a car sharing cooperative for the town of Ithaca, NY. Car Sharing co-ops are designed for people who don't own cars but have occasional needs for them. Members are often cyclists, walkers, and frequent users of public transit.
After about three years of planning, Ithaca CarShare is set to launch June 1 with six Nissan Versa hatchbacks and a Ford Ranger pickup. The organization expects to add more vehicles in August.
Jennifer Dotson, executive director of Ithaca CarShare, said the average car sharing member spends $100 a month compared to the $600 a month that AAA says the average car owner spends.
Nancy Jacoby, an Ithaca resident, said, "I'm really excited. It's been rocking my world all week. It's the missing link to getting rid of my car."
One of the locations cars will be available is at the Ecovillage. I'm sure a number of Ecovillage members will take advantage of the program.
Read the article on Ithaca CarShare.
 Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Car Sharing, Ecovillage at Ithaca, ecovillages, New York
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Monday, May 5th, 2008
Its not uncommon to find musical artists with roots in intentional community making it in the industry. Its more rare to see a community that also operates its own record label promoting over a dozen artists.
The Denver alternative weekly Westword has an article on Dark Meat, an 18 member rock ensemble that grew out of the Orange Twin Conservation Community near Athens, GA.
Part of what makes the band and the town special is the nearby intentional community called Orange Twin. Part record label and part commune, Orange Twin Conservation Community was founded by Elf Power's Laura Carter to support the arts and eco-friendly living in the Athens area. "On a random Wednesday," enthuses McHugh, who also works on the farm and does copywriting and administrative work for the record label, "there'll be an outside show at the farm, with a punk band and a potluck with a roadkill deer that they've cooked up."
Elf Power is another Athens area band that runs the Orange Twin record label and community.
Its great to see a place where community nurtures the musical arts and in turn the music nurtures the community.
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Athens, Dark Meat, Georgia, Orange Twin
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Friday, May 2nd, 2008
A lot of news about communities comes my way and its hard to pick and choose what to highlight on Community Buzz. Today, nothing stood out so I figured I'd do a round up of some news thats been languishing on my list but didn't seem quite enough for its own story.
Ithaca has a new community in the works, Farm Pond Circle, and they are already getting press in the Ithaca Journal for planting trees on their new community land. Obviously folks in Ithaca know about community and must be interested in whats new in their area.
The AP Wire put out a story on how many people are choosing to have only one child and they have quotes from folks at Tryon Life Farm community in Portland.
The local paper in Worcester, MA has an article highlighting the new cohousing communities in the Worchester area. They highlight Mosaic Commons and Camelot Cohousing but also have a nice map of cohousing throughout Massachusettes.
Champlain Valley Cohousing was in the Burlington Free Press in an article about the farm they have on site. The 22 unit cohousing community has a 25 acre farm on its land that works as a CSA and sells to wholesalers.
The Portland Oregonian had an article about Columbia Ecovillage, a community developing in Portland that started as a farm and sustainability education center and just bought the adjacent apartment complex with plans to convert them to green living cohousing. See photos on the Oregonian blog.
Then there's all the reviews of the movie Mister Lonely that is about impersonators (look-a-likes of Michael Jackson , Marilyn Monroe, Charlie Chaplin, etc.) who come together in a commune in Scotland. The kicker is that according to some reviews filmmaker Harmony Korine spent some time as a child "on a commune near Nashville, TN". Most likely The Farm but there are many communes in the Nashville area.
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Camelot Cohousing, Champlain Valley, cohousing, Columbia Ecovillage, ecovillage, Ithaca, Massachusettes, Mister Lonely, Mosaic Commons, Oregon, Portland, Tennessee, The Farm, Tryon Farm, vermont
Posted in Blog posts, News Articles, Video and TV | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 29th, 2008
Colleges and Universities around the country are wanting to improve their ecological impact while also providing students opportunities to learn about sustainable living. Some are taking the ecovillage model and integrating it into their campus planning and student residences.
The University of Maine is exploring ecovillages with the notion of turning some of its less attractive dorms into an ecological demonstration project:
An energetic group of students and faculty have been developing plans to convert these former apartment-style dorm rooms on the fringe of campus into an "ecovillage."
Organizers envision the so-called "York Ecovillage" as a model of sustainable living where students will eat food from local greenhouses and gardens, recycle almost all waste and live in rooms powered by the sun and heated by the Earth.
Berea College Ecovillage in Kentucky has been providing ecological living for students since 2003.
Guided by intertwined educational, environmental, and social goals, the Ecovillage is an ecologically-sustainable residential and learning complex designed to meet housing needs for student families, childcare for campus children, and provide a living/labor opportunity for students interested in sustainability.
Rigorous performance goals for the Ecovillage include: reduction of energy use by 75%; reduction of per capita water use by 75%; treatment of sewage and wastewater on-site to swimmable quality, and recycling, reusing or composting at least 50% of waste.
Giving students an opportunity for community living is not new. There are hundreds of student co-ops at colleges and universities around the country and many of them have a simple living or ecological focus.
The Homestead at Denison University in Ohio has been offering community and simple living experience for students since 1977.
We are off the grid, utilizing solar energy to pump water and to power some appliances. Cooking and heating are accomplished with wood-burning stoves.
At Stanford University they have plans in the works for a Green Dorm which would house students ecologically. Unfortunately Stanford's plans do not incorporate cooperative living into the dorm, despite the fact that their feasibility study shows that some campus co-ops such as Synergy already use 30% less energy than the average.
Hopefully colleges and universities will include the aspects of the ecovillage model which incorporates both sustainable technology and principles of cooperation in their efforts to green their campuses.
Sources
University of Maine Campus article on York Ecovillage
Bangor News article on York Ecovillage
Richmond, KY Register article mentioning Berea College Ecovillage
NASCO Student Co-op Directory
Stanford Green Dorm Feasibility Study
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Berea College Ecovillage, ecovillage, Homestead at Denison, Stanford, Student Co-ops, Synergy Co-op, University of Maine
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Monday, April 28th, 2008
 The Yale Daily News has an article on how study-abroad programs are beginning to focus on sustainability and highlights Living Routes which takes students to ecovillages around the world.
The sudden interest at Yale in trying to make study-abroad activities sustainable - both environmentally and culturally - mirrors a similar move within the study-abroad field as a whole. As increasing numbers of American students hop on carbon-spewing planes to exotic destinations, college administrators and study-abroad programs alike have started to focus on what impact these students may be having, both on the environment and on the local cultures themselves.
As a result, some organizations - like Living Routes - encourage students to offset the impact of their flights by making their lifestyles more environment-friendly or by purchasing "carbon credits," which pay for a tree to be planted or for part of a solar power project in a developing country.
But even at Living Routes, which offers programs designed to encourage students to develop more environmentally sustainable lifestyles through these types of opportunities, doubts remain about whether the results justify the flights.
"We would like to believe that [the programs] change students and that they are therefore worth the environmental impacts," Greenberg said. "But if over the years that doesn't pan out, we're going to be hard-pressed to justify the flights and the travel."
Read the article on Sustainable study-abroad programs in the Yale Daily
More info on Living Routes
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, living routes, study abroad, yale
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
By now, most have heard about the raid by Texas Rangers on the Fundamentalist Mormon community in west Texas. During the raid, 437 children were removed from the community compound based on concerns of child abuse and neglect, primarily based on the concern that underage girls were being forced to marry older men against their will.
We couldn't possibly keep up on all the coverage of the story here but it seemed incongruous to never mention this major media event in this blog about communities in the news.
Below is a small sampling of news and blog coverage on the story. We invite comments if people are interested in sharing.
New York Times Coverage of the story
NPR Coverage
CNN story on how the call precipitating the raid was a hoax
Civil Rights questions raised and ACLU questions threat to constitutional rights
An interesting Blog post comparing the historic Oneida Community to the current events
Blog post from Laird Schaub on the Texas Raid
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Mormon, Texas
Posted in News Articles, Uncategorized, Video and TV | No Comments »
Friday, April 25th, 2008
Israel's Kibbutzim have a media campaign in the works that highlights the ecological benefits of their communal groups according to the Guardian.
The campaign, focusing on 140 sites in the north and south of the country, aims to tout the benefits of kibbutz living for a hip, new eco-aware generation. Re-branded for the 21st century, socialist ideals are downgraded in favour of environmental ethics and organic farming replaces conventional agriculture.
Others describe the development of the new kibbutzim as a confirmation of a changing world. Their reinvention will concentrate mainly on the communes' eco-credentials in an attempt to add ballast to Israel's environmental reputation. All new construction will be energy-efficient, using solar power and recycling water where possible. Plans to phase out conventional agriculture and replace it with organic farming are advanced, a move welcomed by the Negev Desert kibbutz, which is suffering from the effects of climate change. Another nod to the modern age includes the installation of wi-fi internet access.
It sounds like the Green Kibbutz Movement, which has been encouraging a movement towards ecology within Kibbutzim, has fully taken root.
Read the Guardian article on Green Kibbutz.
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, green, kibbutz
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Thursday, April 24th, 2008
Some of the followers of presidential candidate Ron Paul are planning to start a libertarian community in West Texas according to the Lone Star Times.
This month has seen the first meeting of the shareholders in a fledgling community development planned in rural Texas, to be comprised exclusively of Paul's supporters. It is to be called Paulville.
The gated settlement will house freedom-loving folk, living unbound by the shackles of planning regulations. Its founders hope that when complete, it will inspire further Paulvilles around America and, in their own words, "literally change the world, one community at a time".
Necessity dictates that the community will function on a cooperative basis, albeit with the ability for households to opt out. The idea is that the option not to access communal utilities, such as electricity, will ensure that its founding individualist principles remain unsullied.
We wish them luck and hope they continue to get positive press for their endeavors.
Read the Lone Star Times article on Paulville
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Libertarian, Paulville, Texas
Posted in Blog posts, News Articles | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
NPR recently did a three part series on a spiritual community from the 60s called The Source. The Source originated as one of the first natural foods restaurant and grew into a spiritual commune with an ex-marine turned charismatic leader called Father Yod.
Founded by ex-Marine Jim Baker nearly four decades ago, the restaurant quickly drew Hollywood's creative elite; John Lennon, Warren Beatty and Paul Mazursky were regulars. Other young men and women from across the country flocked there in search of something "cosmic," and many never left.
Before and after hours, in meditation classes, Source employees were becoming a spiritual family.
Eventually, around 30 staff members and regulars moved into a mansion together in Griffith Park. In their first year at the "Mother House," the family expanded to nearly 200.
Baker, too, was transforming, from his old self to spiritual leader Father Yod. It was the dawn of a new way of life.
The three part series includes over 20 minutes of audio as well as a slideshow and some interesting notes from the reporter who got swept up in the Source reunion:
Even after the Source reunion I'd attended was over, I couldn't wake up after sunrise. Alone at home, I took up the predawn meditation routine Father Yod developed in the '70s: breathing exercises, followed by chanting and a carefully brewed cup of coffee. After a few weeks, I started noticing a shift in my mental state. Father Yod's teachings unexpectedly began to resonate. Suddenly, it felt like the most natural thing in the world to stop eating meat. So I did.
All in all a fascinating look at communal history.
Listen and read the NPR story on the historic commune The Source.
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: California, communes, NPR, The Source
Posted in News Articles, Podcasts | No Comments »
Monday, April 21st, 2008
In honor of Earth Day, the Washington Post ran an article on Arcosanti with a sidebar on ecovillages as a green vacation destination.
Arcosanti was started in the 1970s by Italian architect Paolo Soleri, a spitfire who seeks an alternative to a car-dominant, hyper-consumerist society. With his so-called urban laboratory, Soleri, 88, hopes to eliminate the automobile, promote frugality and create a functional metro center run on the Earth's resources: food from organic gardens, power from the sun, air conditioning from the shade, building materials from the natural surroundings. Though still a work in progress, Arcosanti in theory offers residents the same amenities as, say, a Manhattanite: housing, commerce, culture and dining.
Some have lobbed the word "commune" at Arcosanti; "tightknit community" is a better description.
The article includes a short slideshow and focuses on Arcosanti as a green tourist destination. The side bar lists a handful of ecovillages and other communities including: Findhorn, LA Ecovillage, EarthArt Village, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, Ecovillage at Ithaca, and Huehuecoyotl Eco-Village.
I hope those communties are ready for a flood of visitors!
Washington Post article on Arcosanti
Sidebar on Green Tourism at Ecovillages
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: Arcosanti, Dancing Rabbit, EarthArt Village, ecovillage, Ecovillage at Ithaca, Findhorn, Huehuecoyotl, LA Ecovillage, washington post
Posted in News Articles | 1 Comment »
Thursday, April 17th, 2008
Baby boomers are looking at moving into shared living and communal living according to the article Boomers go back to the commune in retirement on BankRate.com. Normally when a headline has the words 'commune' and 'boomers' in it they usually mean cohousing but this article is really about income-sharing communal groups.
FIC's directory lists about 100,000 people around the nation living in some form of purposely organized community, of which, Laird Schaub says, about 1-in-7 to as many as 1-in-6 fulfill the income-sharing requirement that technically defines them as communes. Two-thirds of these communities, he says, are in rural settings.
The article goes on to discuss a forming community, Heliotrope, being started in Oregon by a couple that used to live at Church of the Golden Rule community in northern California.
A grandfather of six whose resume includes stints as an artist, cook, greenhouse constructor, organic farmer and teacher, Burns says he envisions fellow Heliotrope residents as "average middle-class working people whose lives won't be a whole lot different than the way they live now, except that everything will be shared."
The article also discusses non-income-sharing options and highlights the efforts of the National Shared Housing Resource Center and the efforts of a real eastate broker who helps seniors find compatible cooperative arrangments.
Jim Parker, broker-owner of Access Brokerage Real Estate Services, has been looking into types of communal living at the request of a number of people in their mid-50s who have come to him with questions about the possibility of trying this kind of living arrangement as they age.
"A lot of people end up single in retirement," he says. "They may not be well off enough to just go out and buy a house, and they're looking for other choices besides renting."
For these folks, Parker says, some kind of communal arrangement is a practical alternative.
Read the Commune article at BankRate.com
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: aging, communes, Income Sharing, seniors
Posted in News Articles | No Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
 Cohousing can help residents reduce their carbon footprint and help prevent global warming according to a paper from the University College London.
Those living in cohousing consume nearly 60 per cent less energy in the home, and operate car-sharing and recycling schemes that greatly reduce the pollution from travel and landfill. Having facilities such as office space, workshops and gym within the community also reduces travel and associated emissions. Residents' direct involvement in the management and maintenance of these communities has also led to the adoption of more energy-efficient systems and renewable sources of energy.
The paper highlights new development models for cohousing which could help it reach a much wider market and increase its impact.
In a paper published in Futures Journal, Dr Jo Williams of the UCL Bartlett School of Planning says that until recently, cohousing has occupied a niche market in the US, largely because the development model adopted has been resident-led. The time, money and effort required to invest in such a project, along with the associated risks, has very much restricted market interest. It takes a minimum of five years to develop a cohousing project, the drop-out rate is high and projects can be expensive.
However, new development models have emerged in the US that reduce resident involvement, risk and cost - namely, partnership, speculative and retrofit models. Developers are beginning to finance and build cohousing both in partnership with prospective residents and speculatively. Residents are also forming their own cohousing communities in existing neighbourhoods, by taking down fences, creating communal facilities and taking on the responsibility for general management and maintenance.
Besides reducing carbon footprint Cohousing could help meet other social goals.
"With concerns about carbon emissions and energy savings, there has never been greater impetus for housing that offers low-carbon lifestyles. If the development models emerging in the US were adopted in the UK, the market for cohousing could be substantially expanded here. This could add to our options for shrinking our carbon footprint as well as meeting social needs, such as safe homes for an ageing population and local childcare facilities for parents who work."
Cohousing press release from UCL
Original paper 'Predicting an American future for cohousing' by Jo Williams is published in the April issue of Futures Journal.
Loading ...
Related Posts Tags: carbon footprint, cohousing, global warming
Posted in News Articles | 1 Comment »
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
 Forbes.com has a special feature section on Utopia which has a great article on intentional communities. The article gives an overview on the US movement with a focus on communities in New York and specifically the Ithaca area. The article includes Photo slideshow of communities around the world including Ecovillage at Ithaca, The Farm, Zegg, Twin Oaks, Arcosanti, Crystal Waters, Findhorn, and Yamagishi.
"The two groups growing dramatically now in America are ecovillages, which are usually rural or semi-rural, and cohousing, which tends to be in or near cities," says Bill Metcalf, a sociologist at Griffith University in Australia who studies communalism and has lived in two intentional communities.
Part of the motivation is that we have a very strongly increased sense of alienation in the country than we did a generation ago," said Laird Schaub, founder and resident of Sandhill Farm in Missouri.
Shared common spaces and clever architectural features--like thick walls and south-facing windows--contribute to energy usage per person that is 40% less than for the average American. A typical couple living in Ecovillage at Ithaca pays about $500 in energy bills a year, compared to a couple in a downtown Ithaca apartment who can pay hundreds of dollars a month during the winter.
There is also a short video on The Fellowship Community, a community which focuses on care for the ill and elderly. The video interview with the founders of the community describes their amazing experience in creating a community that could give long term care to their members and residents. Their unique experience offers an alternative to the wi |
del.icio.us
