Submitted by Enviroman on
From the video uploader:
A growing number of people are looking for new ways to live more eco-friendly lives and many are finding eco-village living as the solution to our environmental problems.
"Clearly we are destroying the natural environment. . We can be sure that our species will not going to be around very long if we don't get our consumption habits under control," says Liz Walker, co-founder and executive director of Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI), who also has written two books on sustainable development. Located a few miles from a small college town in New York State, EVI was formed 20 years ago and it's a leading model for a socially rich lifestyle focused on sustainability.
The ecovillages' mission has two aspects: one is the combination of conservation and living in more sustainable way and the other is the process of cohousing where people come together to live intentionally with each other. The ecovillage and the cohousing movement both started in the early 1990s in Denmark and have migrated around the world. There are over 100 cohousing communities in the United States, many of which still forming, according to the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN), a growing international network of sustainable communities and initiatives. EVI is the first ecovillage in the United States to build two cohousing neighborhoods as part of the same project and a third one, called Third Residential Ecovillage Experience (TREE), is underway. TREE plans to break ground in 2013 and features 40 new different-sized homes, a common house, and the community will be handicap accessible. Unlike self-sufficient communities in the past, EVI members have their own homes and manage their own finances separately, but each pays monthly fee for maintaining the common buildings, the land, and fund future capital projects. Similar to a condominium association, residents buy shares of the common property, such as the common house and the surrounding land. Ecovillagers are actively involved in the governance of the community and make decisions through a consensus process during the board of directors meetings that include members of EVI. "It's a chance to be with our neighbors, it's a chance to have friends without having to drive across a big city," says Barbara Pease, EVI member and a retired computer scientist who moved from Boston. "It seems like an idea whose time has come for our country and I think it will be increasing," says Shannon Wagner, EVI member and a retired attorney. Three Groves EcoVillage (TGE) in West Grove, Pennsylvania, has a similar vision of building an ecologically sustainable neighborhood. This ecovillage is still forming and expects to break ground in June 2012. "We are over-exploiting the planet to the point that there isn't going to be a future for our children, unless we start doing something about it," says Sandy Wiggins, developer for TGE.