Ecovillages: Lessons for Sustainable Community

Written with such joy and insight. If you are curious about ecovillages, do yourself a favor and stroll through the mind of a professor who visited over a dozen. Some of the stories are the best you will ever hear in your life and you may wonder, why we all don't live in this kind of rich, meaningful settlement.

This book is about people who have decided to do something to improve the ecosystem, self chosen strategies within volunteer communities which use a wide variety of settings world wide, urban and rural, spiritual or secular to address the needs of our groaning planet. Well written and interesting. Inspiring to those who are bummed out over the current trends towards self destruction.

Ecovillages is an amazing book. This book addresses the myriad challenges we face as a planet with inspiration for a new world. Whether you are an ecovillager living off-grid on acres of land, or a mainstream urban American, this book offers lessons and inspirations for anyone who wants to see our world thrive.

I appreciated this effort to examine the eco-village phenomenon. To her credit, Litfin took eco-villages seriously and tried to draw lessons from them to help answer the larger question: how do we scale these micro-efforts up to make them useful for everyone else? But the answers she provided were disappointing and extremely naive, especially for a political scientist. The bedrock issues of political science revolve around POWER; yet you'd never know that from her book. Yet power is exactly what is needed. To prevent escalating planetary ecocide, the drive for profit must be removed from its place of prominence over the global economy. To accomplish this, people will need the political power to change the economic rules of the game. Why? Because they will face very formidable foes dead-set against changing these rules.But does Litfin say anything about power, profit, or how to build such a political movement? NO. Like most academics, she scrupulously avoids the "c" word (capitalism) and reduces the economy to a giant growth machine wreaking havoc with the planet. But capitalism's prime directive is profit, not growth. If growth "runs out of gas" and turns to contraction and collapse, capitalism won't evaporate. Corporate elites will extract profits from hoarding, corruption, crisis, and conflict. In a growth-less economy, the profit motive can have a devastating catabolic impact on society. (The word "catabolism" comes from the Greek and is used in biology to refer to the condition whereby a living thing feeds on itself.) Catabolic capitalism will lurch from crisis to crisis, devouring the society it previously created. Unless we free ourselves from its grip, catabolic collapse will become our future--not sustainable Green societies.Yet, like most academics, Litfin simply believes that educating people is all that's required. Her blind spot around the issue of power hides the full potential of the eco-villages (and Transition Towns) she discusses. These efforts to build sustainable communities free from addiction to consumerism and fossil fuels can become valuable "home fronts" in the emerging war of resistance to save ourselves and our planet from a profit-driven, petro-powered, global economy. We need these home fronts to generate useful alternatives to degenerating industrial capitalism. But we also need them to help germinate and fertilize powerful grassroots movements with the courage and popular support to resist militarism, social injustice, and ecocide and to eventually break the death grip of corporate power over the planet and our lives. Without political power to change the rules of the game, we will always be swimming upstream. But with it, we will be able to make the decisions necessary to govern all the life support systems that sustain our communities and our countries. What Karen Litfin misses is the undeniable fact the people must fight for the POWER to create new economic systems that prioritize people and the planet--not profit.

Answers most of the unknowns about village life and it's functionality. Well written and easy to enjoy. Highly recommend.

Bought it for class, did not read because I am lazy. Pretty cover! Seems interesting!

When I first got this book I had a hard time making myself start the read. It is mostly writing with a few black and white pictures and when it mentioned Damanhur and Findhorn I began to assume that it was really a collection of well advertised commercial communities and didn't have much to offer someone wanting to start one. I'm glad I was wrong!She gives the location of the book's website where you can find lots of great pictures of each community and the information she discusses is not by any stretch of the imagination, a commercial. While she is an academic with credentials in the field of sustainability, the writing is aimed at the causal reader. It is very down to earth and deals with the real issues that affect starting an alternative community. She spent two week at each of these places and writes from the perspective of someone who learns not only about their culture, but about the very human problems that crop up when people attempt to live with more than 10 or 20 of your closest friends.The problems are similar in some ways. People who choose to live an alternative lifestyle have to be strong enough in their beliefs to walk away from the flock. That very strength can make them uncompromising. One community, "Earthhaven" had 50 members when a major problem arose. The state of South Caroline closed its borders to over night guests because it was using water from a spring which it deemed to be unsanitary. Arguments arose from purists in the group who felt that drilling a water well was desecrating the Earth. Since they derived operating funds from their educational outreach this quickly led to financial issues. As you might imagine, people being passionate about beliefs can cause many issues. Can a Vegan eat next to someone who has free range chicken on their plate? Not always. As one director put it, they don't HAVE to accept compromise at this point. In a real emergency food and water situation people would probably be more accepting of each other. As things stand, people are still free to squabble, disagree and leave.The communities themselves vary greatly as well. Italy's Damanhur, a spiritual community led by its charismatic leader Falco, appears to be heavily funded and features smartphones for everyone and a molecular biology lab to test GMO food. While it does research into sustainable foods, I was glad to see she didn't fall in love with Damanhur. I was initially wowed by its underground temples until an Italian friend shared some not so spiritual information about Falco's financial dealings.Other communities, like Colufifa in Senegal, are on the other end of the spectrum, existing with very little in the way of funds. Colufifa represents an alliance of 350 West African villages dedicated to organic farming, adult literacy and microfinancing. Each of the fourteen villages she visits has its problems and perks, with most of the problems involving either groups of people within the village transitioning to different mindsets or collisions with existing laws and culture. It also seems that unless they want to make lots of money or take on a social problem...there isn't a lot of support for these groups in our corporate world. Except for the well-established and funded like Damanhur, Findhorn and Auroville in India, most are finding their way a day at a time. Her discussions of the economies of the smaller ecovillages are well worth your reading time if you have any interest in creating an alternative community.

This book was very insightful. It provided an interesting account of sustainability and ecovillages. The author provides a bit too much "personal" accounts at times, but it was good overall.