ABC News in DC did a short video spot on Catoctin Creek Village out in Loudon County, VA and compared the rural cohousing community to both a 60s commune and a golf community. Not the most flattering or accurate description of community but I guess there is no such thing as bad publicity.
The commune is a flash from the past where people lived together and shared almost everything. "We don't share incomes. We don't share partners. It's just like any other subdivision but with a slight twist," said Oliveau.
The twist is much like a golf community, but without the golf. The concept is known as co-housing.
The concept of co-housing did evolve from the communes of the 70's, but people at Catoctin Creek say they are less like flower children and more like farm family.
Your Health Connection has created a series of three videos on cohousing and how it can help enhance people's health. The site generaly focuses on health care and and medical issues but did a special report on cohousing as a healthier lifestyle.
Videos include interviews with folks from Frog Song Cohousing in Cotati, CA and Glacier Circle Cohousing a senior cohousing community in Davis, CA. The first video is an overview of cohousing including a look at senior cohousing. The second is a moving piece looking at the experiences of a woman diagnosed with cancer and how her cohousing community supported her during treatment.
Abundance Ecovillage in Fairfield, IA made the local news with a wonderful piece on their growing ecologically focused community. The piece focused primarily on the ecological aspects: solar and wind power, energy conservation, rain water catchment, waste water treatment, food production, etc.
Co-founder Lonnie Gamble started the project after several people approached him about how to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, "Their beer is cold, their showers are hot, but we do it with one-tenth of the energy a conventional home would use."
The Ecovillage has room for 50 to 70 people to make their home for about the same cost as building a new home in Fairfield. But here there are no electric, water, or even sewage bills to worry about. Gamble asks, "If we can build homes like that for about conventional cost, why do we build anything else?"
We've been wanting to have more video pieces on Community Buzz but video on community is just not as easy to find. We hope to start posting at least one video a week but to do so will need to include not just the latest and greatest videos. If you have a favorite online video on community let us know.
This week we're featuring a video from CurrentTV, a TV station started by Al Gore that gets much of its content from videos posted online and voted on by internet viewers. CurrentTV definitely has a lot of video related to sustainability and community and we're sure to bring you more from their site in the future.
This 12 minutes video is a tour of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee. Ecovillage activist Albert Bates guides you through the center's myriad of ecological learning facilities. Produced by Dharma Dog Pictures.
This half-hour video, an interview with Brandy Gallagher MacPherson, shows how OUR Ecovillage on Vancouver Island, British Columbia is a positive response to things like peak oil.
O.U.R. stands for "One United Resource," expressing how interdependence and inclusion undergird this 25 acre demonstration sustainable community on Vancouver Island. This model ecovillage comprises natural buildings, a school, long- and short-term residences, extensive gardens, greenhouses, and even a bed & breakfast. Brandy Gallagher MacPherson describes how they created an entirely new zoning category by building relationships with regulatory agencies that go beyond "us versus them". www.ourecovillage.org
Communities Magazine editor Diana Leafe Christian concisely spells out what the successful 10% of intentional communities do: common vision and purpose, fair participatory decision-making, clear agreements in writing, good balance of right and left-brain knowledge, methods of staying accountable to agreements, criteria for new members, good communication and processing skills. She also discusses peak oil effects on the wider community. www.creating-a-life-together.org
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Abundance Ecovillage
