The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [70]
Looking ahead, I can imagine families in the future will live in an “eco-home” that is nested within an “eco-village,” that is nested within an “eco-city,” and so on up the scale to the bioregion, nation, and world. Each eco-village of several hundred people could have a distinct character, architecture, and economy. Most would likely contain: a childcare facility; a community house for meetings, celebrations, and meals; an organic community garden; a recycling and composting area; some revered open space; and a crafts/shop area. Each could offer their talents to support aspects of the local economy—the arts, healthcare, childcare, non-profit learning centers for gardening, green building, conflict resolution, and other skills—that would provide fulfilling employment for many. These micro-communities could have the culture and cohesiveness of a small town and the sophistication of a big city, as virtually everyone will be immersed within a world rich with communications. Eco-villages create the possibility for doing meaningful work, raising healthy children, celebrating life in community, and living in a way that seeks to honor the Earth and future generations. In looking at intentional communities emerging around the world, it is clear to me that a spiritual dimension is important in many of them. In turn, with the support of a conscious community, we can each grow into a more intimate relationship with the aliveness of the universe.
Because eco-villages, or co-housing communities, typically range in size from a hundred to several hundred people, they approximate the scale of a traditional tribe. Consequently, eco-villages are compatible with both the village-based cultures of indigenous societies and the needs of post-modern cultures. With a social and physical architecture sensitive to the psychology of modern tribes, a flowering of diverse communities—most created through retrofitting—could replace the alienation of today’s massive cities. Diverse forms of eco-villages could provide the practical scale and foundation for a sustainable future. I believe new villages will become important islands of community, security, learning, and innovation in a world of sweeping change. These smaller-scale, human-sized living and working environments will foster diverse experiments in community and cooperative living. Overall, sustainability will be achieved through differing designs that are uniquely adapted to the culture, economy, interests, and environment of each locale.
Despite the appeal of eco-villages as a design for sustainable living, there is not the time to retrofit and rebuild our existing urban infrastructure before we hit an evolutionary wall. Climate disruption, energy shortages, and other critical trends will overtake us long before we have the opportunity to make a sweeping overhaul in the design and function of our cities and towns; therefore, it is important to learn from experiments in eco-villages and co-housing and to adapt their designs and principles for successful living to existing urban settings. Without the time to retrofit into well-designed green villages, we must make the most of the existing urban infrastructure and creatively adapt ourselves within it. Global challenges will produce a wave of green innovations for local living—technical, ecological, economic, social, architectural, and more. Lessons learned in eco-villages and co-housing will be important sources of invention and inspiration for a new village movement as existing urban architecture is transformed into human-scale