To launch the competition, bloggers were brought to Denmark and toured the 25 year old ecovillage, a pioneering example of sustainable community in Europe.

VIew two short videos below:

Dyssekilde Ecovillage in Denmark - Impressions

Dyssekilde Ecovillage: Interview with Birgitta Steen

Ruth Ann Smalley writes in the Schenectady, NY Daily Gazette about her neighborhood:

I came home one day just in time to catch my neighbor planting flowers in my front garden. I had admired several of his plants, and asked him if they would do well in shade and among tenacious tree roots. Little did I know he’d be so obliging!

We chose our neighborhood because of its reputation for being an old-fashioned neighborhood, where kids run in and out of each other’s houses. Since we’ve been here, we’ve been to ice cream socials, a children’s talent show, and all kinds of seasonal celebrations. One family hosts an annual August “Kid Wash,” where children in swimsuits soap up, and enjoy being sprayed by adults with garden hoses.

On a more serious note, last year 10 of us met for nine months to discuss sustainability issues, using a course packet from the Northwest Earth Institute.  As a result, we started a neighborhood vegetable garden. A book club formed this year, as well as a “band” of about eight, who gather to play guitar, ukulele, hammered dulcimer, fiddle and flute.

Patricia Mikkelson writes on the neighborhood survival blog:

I feel so grateful for my Brown Farm Neighborhood. It has taken me a decade to appreciate this place. I have tried to move so many times it is not funny. I have wanted it to be something it might never be...an intentional community set up as a land trust. And, it is possible that some day it might happen. But for now, I bask in the glow of my wonderful neighborhood with all it’s imperfections and loveliness.

Let me give you an example of a few days in the life of my neighborhood, which is rich with opportunities to build a sense of community every day. A few days ago I came home to a note on my door from Alex, my next door neighbor. Alex is the daughter of people I used to know when we lived in Chimes 33 years ago. She offered to give me some plants if I wanted them. We got together the next day and I gratefully accepted the tomato, pepper and broccoli plants which she carefully planted from seed, varieties which were unique-ones that she found to be most successful. Wow! What a gift.

I went over to Martha and Josh Brown family house to see if I could get my weekly ration of left over food. We have an agreement that Martha cleans out her refrigerator of things that might go to waste otherwise, and I come up with all kinds of little treats that I normally wouldn’t use.

It has taken me a decade to learn to appreciate my neighborhood instead of focusing on the negative. The more that I appreciate the goodness of my neighborhood, the more good it becomes! At times, when I feel dissatisfied with my relationships with my neighbors, instead of complaining to others as I have in the past, I pray for them, appreciate the good things they do, and just remind myself that we all have needs we are trying to get met. I pray that all of our needs can get met, and that the barriers we have to love each other unconditionally will dissolve.

Craig gives the following benefits that cohousing offers:

It brings more meaning to my life. I share leadership of this community with 25 other adults, and we learn from each other and our 12 children constantly.

It's fun. I'm not a big party person, but I get to enjoy parties here all the time.

It conserves resources and preserves natural spaces... here, I live in a modest-sized home on 11 acres of property. My home is about 1,100 square feet, but I share a common house (about 4,000 square feet), a barn (about 6,000 square feet), a few other outbuildings, a huge organic garden, an orchard, a forest, and a meadow. We share five meals per week in our common house, which means neither my wife nor I spend our time cooking or cleaning as much as we did before moving into cohousing. Our homes are all clustered on about two acres of those 11 acres... this means that there is lots of open, green space -- you know, the part of the earth that produces oxygen and allows non-human life...to thrive.

Ragland says that boomers are looking for some specific features in their cohousing communities: WiFi, efficient systems including good process, and an adult- and child- firendly environment.

The article does touch on senior cohousing as well.

Read the article about cohousing for boomers

The court said the record did "not reflect any reasonable effort on the part of the department to ascertain if some measure short of removal and/or separation would have eliminated the risk."

It said that the evidence of danger to the children "was legally and factually insufficient" to justify the removal and that the lower court had "abused its discretion" in failing to return the children to the families.

From the Washington Post:

"Even if one views the FLDS belief system as creating a danger of sexual abuse by grooming boys to be perpetrators of sexual abuse and raising girls to be victims of sexual abuse," the three-judge panel wrote, ". . . there is no evidence that this danger is 'immediate' or 'urgent' . . . with respect to every child in the community."

Of particular interest to other communities was the courts statement that the community did not constitute a single household:

The notion that the entire ranch community constitutes a "household" as contemplated by section 262.201 and justifies removing all children from the ranch community if there even is one incident of suspected child sexual abuse is contrary to the evidence. The Department's witnesses acknowledged that the ranch community was divided into separate family groups and separate households. While there was evidence that the living arrangements on the ranch are more communal than most typical neighborhoods, the evidence was not legally or factually sufficient to support a theory that the entire ranch community was a "household" under section 262.201.

The Mormon Community's families, as well as many child-welfare experts, say that the separation of the children from their families will likely have negative and long lasting effects. From the New York Times:

They say a growing body of research supports the contention of the mothers that forceful removal can have both significant short-term and long-lasting harm, particularly for younger children. Some studies have found that the wide-ranging effects include anxiety, extreme distrust of strangers and, in the future, higher rates of teenage pregnancy and juvenile incarceration.

Legal issues for the ranch are not over as the state will continue to investigate specific cases of abuse. Again the New York Times:

State and federal criminal investigations are under way and could still produce criminal charges.

"It's really unfortunate, because obviously there are some children who have been sexually abused," Ms. McCurley, a lawyer representing some of the children, said. "But this doesn't keep them from coming back and having another hearing. They could get their proof together, for example have a doctor come in and say this child is 13 years old and she has already given birth to another child, and the father of that child is 46 years old.

At this point it is unclear when the children will be returned to their families as the legal process has hit another snag:

Negotiations for the state's release of more than 460 children who were removed from a polygamist sect in April broke down Friday in a scene of chaos and bitterness in a courtroom in this West Texas city. Lawyers for the families said the judge overseeing the release lacked authority to impose restrictions on it, and the judge, in disagreement, ended the proceedings and walked out of the courtroom.

Articles cited:

Court Says Texas Illegally Seized Sect’s Children (New York Times)
Appeals Court Ruling
Court Rejects Seizure Of Tex. Sect's Children (Washington Post)
Sect Mothers Say Separation Endangers Children (New York Times)
Texas Loses Court Ruling Over Taking of Children (New York Times)
Deal to Return Children to Sect Breaks Down (New York Times)

Commentary:

Laird's Blog - Sanity Prevails

The article follows the standard "they're not hippies" line with an emphasis on the inherent cost of New York City condo ownership with the headline, "Wanted: Roommates with money".

"We want more out of life. We want more community. We were lonely and felt too isolated," said Alex Marshall, who started planning the first co-housing dwelling in the city with his wife last summer.

Alas, the 1970s are dead. This will not be a pot-smoking, patchouli-filled, free-loving, anything-goes compound.

"Take a commune and a condo, put them in a blender and this is what you get," said Ben Watts, a likely resident of the building, which will probably be in Park Slope, Prospect Heights or Windsor Terrace.

The article goes on to get some quotes from members of true communes from New York's past and finishes with a mildly humorous comparison of co-housing and communism noting that in cohousing the main source of conlfict is "Hectic, impersonal modern life" whereas in communism it is "Unequal ownership of the means of production."

For the real trash, see the commentary on the article at nymag.com where their only context to comment on the cohousing group is based on TV and movies and they snidely quip, "Something about a bunch of adults living as roommates seems inherently pervy to us."

Read the article on Brooklyn Cohousing.

While I don't personally go in for survivalism, the article is a great piece on how creating a sense of community and building trust with those around us is a key to mutually-dependent survival.

Let's first identify what we are talking about when we talk about community. In this context community does not refer only to individuals or families who own land together or who happen to live in proximity to one another, although proximity will more and more be the rule as fuel becomes scarce and travel is limited. We define community, in this context, to be a congregation of people who have, by the commitment and skills they possess, learned to establish relationships characterized by trust, understanding, mutual respect, and bonding that transcends personality and allows and even embraces differences of background or ideology. Such a group is able to think together effectively and to tap into deep wisdom about challenging issues. They can do this because they trust each other enough to question and suspend the assumptions and core beliefs that limit their insights as individuals. Such a group does not come together, as a therapy group does, for the purpose of healing per se, although insight and healing of isolation, unresolved past conflict, fears, and insecurities often occurs. The purpose of the kind of community we are speaking of is to come together to glean wisdom from listening and speaking with one another and to offer connection, support, comfort, and mutual respect. Such a group of people learns together to find better solutions, wiser actions and more joy together than is possible for them to do as isolated individuals, couples or families.

My question is, "Why wait for collapse?" Let's do it now. It doesn't seem like we should need the motivation of surviving collapse to see the benefits of connection, support, and mutual respect. The article goes on to address one of the most challenging aspects of creating community:

Conflict is inevitable. A community must develop skills to effectively resolve conflict so that people feel cared-for and respected. Its apparent absence is a red flag signaling the likelihood of dysfunction, of unspoken feelings and truths that need to be told, or of a strict authoritarian hierarchy that keeps conflict as well as individual creativity submerged. Indigenous cultures at their high points skillfully navigated conflict, and in fact probably welcomed it. They evolved creative skills for addressing it compassionately and assertively, with elders, both men and women, who carried those skills and wisdom down through generations. Those of us reared in the hierarchies of empire are not so lucky. Most people don't feel fully adult much less secure enough to be considered real elders. We are having to glean the best we can from older cultures and learn from the most innovative practices that have come from psychology and organizational development to find our way in to creative, cooperative relationship.

So whether you think the collapse is near or just want more community in your life, there is no time like the present to start creating or finding community in whatever form it may take for you.

Read the We Can Survive, But Can We Communicate article

Community resources for Peak Oil

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.

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

Lammas Ecovillage

Lammas has been getting a lot of press and exposure on blogs but not all of it has been accurate. EcoWorldly and TreeHugger recently posted a notice saying Lammas had been granted approval but a Lammas member commented to say that they had resubmitted their plans but is still awaiting approval. For more accurate info keep an eye on the Welsh news or on the Lammas site itself.

You can also see videos about Lammas at undercurrents.org:

Living in the Future and

Ecovillage Pioneers

I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!

Ragland gives the basics of cohousing touching on its appeal to the mainstream and its ecological possibilities:

Part of what makes cohousing attractive is that it specifically attempts to create a model that is close enough to the mainstream. It can be financed by conventional bank financing, and frequently uses production housing to help control costs. It's a part of the broader, intentional communities movement, or can be seen as part of that. But it's close enough to the mainstream that it can actually happen more readily, and that appeals to a large number of Americans.

Read the whole article on Cohousing in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

A lifestyle trend that first started back in 1960s Denmark, co-housing may be making a comeback among progressive Gen Xers and Ys....While co-housing used to be a fringe movement, it is now resonating with Xers and Ys who are starting families, searching for community and looking to pool resources.

While I don't understand how cohousing's continually fast and steady growth can be described as a "comeback", its not surprising that Gen Xand Gen Y want in on the action. It seems the appeal of cohousing cuts across generations and its only a matter of when people get into the home buying market that they will start taking a look at cohousing.

Treehugger article on Cohousing for Gen X and Gen Y.

Trendcentral article on Cohousing for Gen X and Gen Y.

New Vrindaban was established 40 years ago by the funder of the Hare Krishnas and is now home to 20 devotees and has 80 or more people connected to the community in the surrounding area.

For many outsiders, the community's biggest draw is its Palace of Gold, an ornate, Indian-style temple that looks entirely unlike anything you'd expect to encounter in West Virginia. The site is visited by upwards of 40,000 pilgrims and tourists a year, many from India.

The community is still gathering signatures for its petition to the FCC and there is serious competition for the available frequencies in their area. We wish them luck.

Read the article.

The excerpt from their book, Blueprint for Greening Affordable Housing, describes how Greenway Cohousing managed to merge green building with affordability.

Greenway Park is one of the first cohousing projects created exclusively for low-income residents (most such projects are for middle- to upper-middle-class residents, and a few are mixed income) and is structurally a rental project (most cohousing raise construction funds by preselling units). Also, the building is the first affordable housing project in Chicago to have no professional manager. Greenway Park is self-managed by its residents, and future tenants are selected by current tenants.

The developers did great work to get grants and state funding to support energy efficient design for heating, cooling, and electricity. They knew that affordability doesn't just mean low purchase price or rent, but also low cost for utilities.

Greenway Park's green efforts focused on an integrated approach that incorporated a package of energy-efficient building practices, the deliberate substitution of a variety of green building materials for their more conventional counterparts, and a 2.4 kW rooftop photovoltaic system.

Read the BuildingGreen Cohousing post.

 For many Seniors and Boomers, co-housing is more appealing than other living options, such as seniors-only buildings or nursing homes, because residents live in safe, nurturing environments, where neighbors care for one another.

 Read the post.

Compost toilets, grey water, cob, eco-villages– these terms are entering mainstream vocabulary more and more. Yet many old-fashioned codes and regulations are holding people back from adopting earth-friendly homes and lifestyles.

Read the Article.

They stopped at Rosewind Cohousing and Port Townsend EcoVillage in Washington.

Read the blog post.

This one covers their stop at Abundance Ecovillage, Sandhill Farm, and Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage.

Read the article

Seems like everyone is talking abut Damanhur lately. Sounds like a pretty amazing place.

Honored by the United Nations in 2005 as a model for a new sustainable society, this extraordinary community in northern Italy was founded in 1975 as a center of art and spirituality; and an experimental model of environmental and socioeconomic sustainability.

Today over 1,000 people live and work in Damanhur's 40 villages, many in "group" homes where 12 or more people - related or not - divvy up chores and share meals at enormous tables. This sort of togetherness would make many Americans downright surly! But every one of the Damanhurians I met was disarmingly happy and quick to laugh.

Read the Article

http://foodstepsusa.blogspot.com/2007/09/day-13.html

http://foodstepsusa.blogspot.com/2007/09/bit-on-ecovillage-at-ithaca.html