Posts Tagged ‘ecovillage’
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
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The Valley Advocate out of Northampton, MA has an extensive article on intentional communities in western Massachusetts. The author starts her exploration in a book about Total Loss Farm, a community formed in the late sixties out of the peace movement. Amid concerns for peak oil and sustainability she heads off to explore a smattering of the current communities in her area.
Intentional communities, groups living in consciously designed and structured dwellings, roles and relationships, are on the rise in the U.S., according to statistics published on the website of the Federation of Intentional Communities. There are, at this writing, 50 intentional communities (14 of these "forming") in Massachusetts. Over a dozen of these are within a 45-minute drive of Northampton.
One stop is Laughing Dog Farm a CSA (community supported agriculture) farm on the site of the former Renaissance Community.
Laughing Dog Farm sits on a steep hillside with a view of the massive, 1970s shingle-style mansion of a dorm that housed many in the Renaissance Community from the mid-'70s to 1988. Daniel and Divya's house, another Renaissance Community relic of '70s architectural optimism and grooviness, is ample and was also built as a dormitory.
Daniel learned organic micro-agriculture farming techniques that produce a wide variety of crops: the integration of multi-use beds that are heavily mulched to retain moisture. He has a 65-foot long hoop-house, an arched tunnel of translucent plastic. The hoop-house produces tomatoes in November. Daniel and his wife Divya grow food for 10 families, who purchase shares of the yearly harvest and collect vegetables all growing season. The operation doesn't pay for itself yet.
They're making it work with sacrifice, and they've learned to grow enough food to live on—in case they need to one day. At one point during my tour I burst out, "But it all seems so hard." Daniel smiled.
Another stop is Sirius Community "a 30-year-old ecovillage in Shutesbury." She describes their community center and wind generator and their activities in the town of Shuttesbury where they are actively working through local political channels to get a windmill installed at the Town Hall.
Living in an intentional community does not necessitate giving up on civic participation and the local governmental structure. Rather, the community living ethic is well suited to the collaborative solution of pressing practical problems.
Next the author visits with miyaca (pronounced "me-yah-cha") dawn coyote who is founding a comunity called Healing Grace Sanctuary:
She hopes one day to live on her Shelburne Falls land in an intentional community that is "sacred, sane, and humane." The community of her dreams will adhere to her creed: "We need to become outdoor creatures that occasionally go in, and stop being indoor creatures who occasionally go out." Her ardent description of the future "Healing Grace Sanctuary" on the Intentional Communities web directory led me to her - the first person I met on this journey.
Her next stop is an urban Chirstian community, Nehemiah Community, a community focused on service and social justice:
Members of Nehemiah go out at night, looking for the homeless people that they know. They make sure they have blankets and food if there are no beds in the city's overflow shelters. They are aware of who dies. A new project they are organizing is a quadruplex in Springfield called The Village for single mothers and their children. Jonathan organizes Mission Phoenix, twice-weekly designated art space at Christ Church Cathedral in the Loaves and Fishes kitchen. The program provides free materials and art classes for low-income and homeless people. In 2006 they held the first holiday sale of their art.
She stops in next at Rocky Hill Cohousing:
At the more familiar and bourgeois end of the spectrum of intentional communities is Rocky Hill Cohousing in Florence. A condominium association, the development comprises 28 homes in 15 buildings (mostly handsome duplexes) on 28 acres....
The sequestering of all cars to a parking lot (homes face each other and share common land; residents use carts to bring groceries to their houses) encourages greater freedom for children, who are more apt to play together spontaneously when they see each other outdoors. Arranged play dates are no longer required for kids to play together. One oft-traded commodity there is childcare. Kids my son's age had roamed freely in the woods of the Sirius Community, too.
The article is a very positive portrayal of the variety of communities in the area and in the movement. I like this concluding quote:
Friends living with friends - it just may be the heart of the revolution.
Read the Valley Advocate article on intentional communities in western Massachusetts.
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Related Posts Tags: cohousing, ecovillage, Healing Grace Sanctuary, Laughing Dog Farm, Massachusettes, Nehemiah Community, Rocky Hill Cohousing, Sirius, Total Loss Farm
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Wednesday, May 21st, 2008
The environmental news site, Grist, has a great article about how Cleveland is going green. The article highlights the Cleveland Ecovillage a "pedestrian-friendly neighborhood linked to mass transit".
The project is the brainchild of five local nonprofits, the city, the regional transit authority, private developers, and neighborhood residents. They aim to bring residents back to the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood, and to serve as an example to other cities of how to redevelop the inner city in a green fashion.
Near the newly renovated West 65th Street rapid transit station, Cuyahoga Community Land Trust is in the process of building five two- and three-bedroom homes, between 1,226 and 1,350 square feet each, called the Green Cottages. They're designed to be LEED-certified and models of energy efficiency, with projected heating costs of just $36 a month thanks to energy-saving appliances and heavy insulation.
Because mixed-income housing is a key to sustainability, EcoVillage designers wanted to coax both lower- and upper-middle-class residents to return to the inner city. The cottages are surrounded by Craftsman-era homes, many of them carefully restored, painted the colors of Easter eggs and with wide front porches. Down the street, within walking distance to the rapid-transit station that links to downtown, are 20 1,600-square-foot EcoVillage townhouses constructed by GreenBuilt Homes, an eco-friendly Cleveland builder.
"We had a few folks who moved in from the suburbs, some who moved from within the local neighborhood, and some that came from other cities and other states," said Metcalf. At this point, the people behind EcoVillage feel pretty safe claiming the project a success.
The article goes on to describe a number of other ecological projects in and around Cleveland.
Read the Eco-city Cleveland article at Grist
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Related Posts Tags: Cleveland, eco-city, ecovillage, Ohio
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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.
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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
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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
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Related Posts Tags: Berea College Ecovillage, ecovillage, Homestead at Denison, Stanford, Student Co-ops, Synergy Co-op, University of Maine
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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
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, living routes, study abroad, yale
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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.
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, green, kibbutz
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Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
A recent article in the Saskatoon Star Phoenix highlights a study claiming the best climate change solution is to invest in green building. The article sites the Rivergreen Ecovillage in Saskatoon as an example of such green building design put into practice.
The most cost-effective climate change solution
The article sites a study by Architecture2030 that focuses on how green building can both reduce carbon emissions, create more jobs, and save consumers money. The study says:
Investment in building energy efficiency is surprisingly effective. A single investment of $21.6 billion would replace 22.3 conventional 500 MW coal-fired power plants, reduce annual CO2 emissions by 86.7 million metric tons, save 204 billion cu. ft. of natural gas and 10.7 million barrels of oil each year8, save consumers $8.46 billion in energy bills annually9 (less than a 3-year simple payback) and create 216,000 permanent new jobs.
The article notes:
Improving the energy performance of existing and new buildings can begin to reduce emissions almost immediately. The required technologies are already available off the shelf. In contrast, clean coal is still experimental. Even its proponents don't know how well it will work or what the final costs will be. In any case, actual reductions of GHGs from investing in clean coal or nuclear power will not commence for 10 years or so, as the technology is developed and the plants can be built.
Ecovilages are pioneers in green building
Rivergreen Ecovillage is just one example of ecovillages pioneering green building. The Communities Directory lists hundreds of ecovillages worldwide, almost all of which incorporate some forms of green building and focus on solutions to climate change.
Sources
Star Phoenix story on Green Building as a solution for global climate change
Study from Arhcitecture2030 on comparing climate change solutions
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Related Posts Tags: carbon footprint, climate change, ecovillage, global warming, green building, RiverGreen Ecovillage, Sakatchewan
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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
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Related Posts Tags: Arcosanti, Dancing Rabbit, EarthArt Village, ecovillage, Ecovillage at Ithaca, Findhorn, Huehuecoyotl, LA Ecovillage, washington post
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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 wider culture's experiences with elder care. (Note video may not be viewable on Firefox)
But the utopia feature is not all positive on the concept of utopia. Forbes also has an article on the failures of utopian experiments. Mostly the article highlights all the "failed" communities of America's past and comes from an economic/business perspective (it is Forbes.com after all).
The competition for succession invariably favors not the wise, but the ruthless. This is especially dangerous in communistic societies. Where selfishness is a sin or a crime, everyone is guilty; you don't want your antagonists gaining the authority to sit in judgment.
A second lesson is that ideals are constraints, and the more constraints one tries to impose, the less viable the community will be. It's hard enough for a private company--an organization focused exclusively on economic success--to survive intact for multiple generations. Add to that special utopian claims on the firm by the employees and you can see how tough the odds are. The best bet is to run utopia as a business, which is exactly what many communities concluded.
A second lesson is that ideals are constraints, and the more constraints one tries to impose, the less viable the community will be. It's hard enough for a private company--an organization focused exclusively on economic success--to survive intact for multiple generations. Add to that special utopian claims on the firm by the employees and you can see how tough the odds are. The best bet is to run utopia as a business, which is exactly what many communities concluded.
This last argument seems to contradict the research presented recently in the Economist that claimed that religious communities were more successful if they had more strictures on their membership, not less.
Not to stop with things balanced, Forbes produces another article on the failures of American Utopianism including a photo slideshow including pictures of the Jonestown mass suicide.
But wait there is more! An article about someone's not-so-happy experience living in a shared household for a year in college. After a brief smack at Earthaven and Damanhur the author describes her brief experience in a dysfunctional version of community, drawing general conclusions from that experience.
Read the whole special report on Utopia.
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, Ecovillage at, Forbes, utopia
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Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
 Lammas Ecovillage in Wales is seeking approval for their ecovillage under new UK government rules to allow a new form of rural mixed use development. Theirs would be the first ecovillage approved under these new rules which allow a mix a residential, agricultural, and commercial enterprises on much more affordable rural land.
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!
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, Lammas, UK
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