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  • From: "John Schinnerer" <john@eco-living.net>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Walled Communities
  • Date: Tue, 1 Jul 2003 10:33:52 -0700 (PDT)

Aloha,

> Ted's ideas on integrating the suburbs are good but probably
> unachievable, given contemporary attitudes to property and cooperation.

There are counterexamples. One such is N Street Cohousing in Davis, CA, USA:

http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/go/nstreet/

Another (hardcore urban) example is the Los Angeles Ecovillage:

http://www.ic.org/laev/

The most 'popular', or at least most visible manifestation of alternatives
to industrial housing production in the USA seems to be cohousing
projects. I'm guessing they are close enough to 'normal' to attract a
wide variety of people and 'different' enough to appeal to people who want
a bit more of a community-oriented option other than the usual generic
tract house, condo or apartment.

> What works against this in Australian cities at the present time is the
> escalating cost of property, especially in Sydney. This makes cost the
> major barrier to people entering the property market.

Our cultural attachment to land as (speculative) commodity is a
fundamental problem that IMO cannot be 'solved' short of cultural
redesign. There are plenty of examples of cultures that had different
relatiings with the land they inhabited. Land trusts are one already
existing approach.

Ecovillages I've heard of that are on the high end of the cost scale for
buy-in are sometimes there simply because of the high cost of land in
their location - they don't all have a 'gated community' mentality.

Some are there because founders/organizers have been through the process a
few times (unsuccessfully) and don't want to waste any more of their time
with people who have lots of talk but never actually contribute (whether
in money, sweat equity, whatever the options are). One possible response
is to simply raise the up-front price bar.

And some, of course, want a walled community. Which reminds me of another
interesting read that purports to be set in the 'future' but the future
depicted is mostly already here:

"Snow Crash," by Neal Stephenson

(the seminal cyberpunk novel...)


John Schinnerer, MA
-------------------------
- Eco-Living -
Cultural & Ecological Designing
People - Place - Learning - Integration
john@eco-living.net
http://eco-living.net




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