Eco-Villages | sustainableliving

Eco-villages and Intentional Communities

Starting in the 20th century and continuing on until today the eco-village back to the earth movement started in the 1960s with the hippie communes and there are many examples still existing in California around Mendocino County and in Oregon and Washington State. This is basically communal living either shared housing or individual campgrounds, huts or yurts around communal shared facilities such as toilets, showers, communal kitchens, communal laundry, communal gardens with a communal daycare setup and communal social activities. They vary from being very Spartan to basically camping to some that are much more luxurious and closer to resort living.

We can only say that there is no existing "prototype" yet it has set a standard that can be applied to the term. The global ecovillage movement draws inspiration and traces its roots back through diverse lineages. One important thread is the ideal of self-reliance and spiritual enquiry kindled in the world’s religious communities and ashrams over the millennia. The earliest ecovillages were small, democratic, decentralized Celtic monasteries of sixth century Ireland that kept alive the flame of literacy and culture during the European Dark Ages.

Types of Sustainable Communities:

•Ecovillage- a human-scale, full-featured settlement which integrates human activities harmlessly into the natural environment, supports healthy human development, and can be continued into the indefinite future. This implies a conscious awareness of inter-relatedness of all life and the cyclic sustainable systems of nature, an understanding and supporting of cultural, social, and spiritual values of this awareness and how humans can live ecologically balanced lives. Viable technologies are used that do not further harm, but rather help to heal the planet. Many use permaculture, organic gardening, grey water systems, solar and wind power, and passive solar home design.

•Intentional Community- a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values. Primary values often include ecology, equality, appropriate technology, self-sufficiency, right livelihood, humanist psychology, creativity, spirituality, meditation, yoga, and the pursuit of global peace.

•Commune- a small primary group in which interactions are in the mode we would normally associate with a family - i.e. more intense. Decisions are made by the group on both intimate and secondary issues. Historically there have been two types: anarchist (popular in the 60s, usually short-lived) or intentional (more common today) in which the residents must commit to common purpose. Less energy used because space and property are shared.

•Co-housing Group- a small scale community of privately owned homes, green areas and a commonly owned house (common house - usually with a dining area, sitting area, children's play room, guest room, laundry facilities, etc.) combining elements of the traditional village, town and neighborhood. Co-housing groups are planned from beginning to end by the people who will live in them. Decision-making is non-hierarchical. Energy consumption is reduced by eco-design and by sharing via the common house.

What is out there now?

•Over 200 new intentional communities listed between 1990 and 1995.

•These include a continuum from rural (58%) to urban (28%), and from secular (65%) to religious (35%).

•American research shows that people living in communes use on average 36% less gasoline per person and 82% less electricity per person than their non-communal neighbors.

•Currently, more than 90% of intentional communities practice composting and recycling.

•Trends show a shift to more eco-villages and co-housing groups within the communities movement (less "communes")