Author: Molly
Piece in Atlantic about Transition Towns
Posted on April 4, 2011 byAn article in the Atlantic by Kentaro Toyama describes Transition Towns as “the latest in a history of intentional communities that have experimented to find more enlightened alternatives to modern economically driven urban life.” The movement’s basic premises are that the consequences of peak oil and climate change are imminent; that governments and entrenched powers… Read More
Eco-commune movement in Russia
Posted on November 17, 2010 byRussia: Beyond the Headlines, an international newspaper focused on Russian news, politics and culture, recently posted an article on the growth of homesteading communities, referred to as “eco-communes” in rural Russia. Thousands of Russian professionals have lost hope for a better life in cities. They have taken to the forests to create their own utopias… Read More
Huffington Post profiles a Christian community with a social agenda
Posted on September 26, 2010 byThis article discusses the impact that a group of young Christians are hoping to produce by building community in a violent neighborhood in Gresham, Oregon. This work is tied to the tradition of new monasticism, emphasizing communal living, hospitality, contemplation and engagement with the poor. In the two years since David Knepprath and Josh Guisinger… Read More
New York Times showcases emerging collectives in Brooklyn
Posted on September 21, 2010 byAn article in the Fashion & Style section of the Times this week credits urban agriculture, social media and a flourishing arts community as bolstering the trend toward sharing, bartering and living communally in Brooklyn. “The groundswell of social technology today is creating unprecedented opportunities to share and collaborate,” said Rachel Bosman, an author of… Read More
LA Ecovillage Video on Yes! Magazine Website
Posted on August 15, 2010 byYes! Magazine has a video of Los Angeles Ecovillage on their website. Los Angeles’ Eco-Village from Streetfilms on Vimeo. “Urban ecovillages work with surrounding neighborhoods and the city at large to bring a whole systems perspective to urban planning and community development activities. The L.A. Eco-Village Demonstration is part of an international network of sustainable… Read More
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage’s Cob House in Yes!
Posted on August 14, 2010 byYes! magazine has an article and slideshow on one of Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage‘s cob houses. The article is on the cover of the upcoming issue of Yes! on Resilency. The slideshow includes an excerpt from Brian (Ziggy) Liloia’s Cob House blog: I live at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, an intentional community in Northeast Missouri devoted to… Read More
Egalitarian Community in Ethiopia
Posted on July 30, 2010 byA recent article from newsdesk.org looks at the progressive Awra Amba community in Ethiopia. Sixty-three-year-old Zumra Nuru, a longtime promoter of gender equality and religious freedom, founded the society in the 1980s. As a child, Nuru was skeptical of the inequality he observed on a daily basis. … Though Awra Amba could claim only 19… Read More
The Independent looks at ‘Modern Communes’
Posted on July 14, 2010 byA recent article in Britain’s Independent describes the successes of Lammas Eco-village, Brithdir Mawr and Steward Wood communities in the UK. If reassurance were needed that life in a commune really is a plausible alternative to more conventional ways of existence, remember that for years several of these places have been proving their viability across… Read More
Profile of Mackenzie Heights Collective in Vancouver
Posted on July 14, 2010 byBritish Columbia’s independent online magazine, The Tyee, posted a lengthy article a couple months ago on the advantages of collective living, profiling the Mackenzie Heights Collective. Currently housing five adults (ranging in age from mid-20s to mid-40s) and a toddler, the Collective is a model of shared-resources commitment. “We’ve got 2,700 square feet in the… Read More
Cooking Co-ops in the NY Times
Posted on June 25, 2010 byThe New York Times did a nice feature on cooking co-ops. A cooking co-op, or dinner swap, is simply an agreement by two or more individuals or households to provide prepared meals for each other, according to a schedule. The goal is to reduce the time spent in the kitchen while increasing the quality and… Read More
Harvard Magazine Features Nubanusit Neighborhood and Farm
Posted on June 21, 2010 byHarvard Magazine has a nice feature on Nubanusit Farm and Neighborhood, a cohousing community in New Hampshire. They tore up the parking lot and put up a communal paradise. Or so Joni Mitchell could sing about what’s happened on 113 acres of idyllic farmland just outside Peterborough, New Hampshire. In 2004, two couples bought the… Read More
Transition Towns in Australia
Posted on February 14, 2010 byKim Jones, of the Sydney Morning Herald, advocates Transition Towns as a solution to suburban expansion and dwindling resources in Australia in a recent article. The recent trend of Transition Towns, as a response to climate change and the energy crisis, highlights the importance of recognising the rural context when considering the issues of urban… Read More
British Government funds ecovillage in Wales
Posted on January 3, 2010 byGreen Building Press reports that the British Government is donating 350,000 pounds (more than $500,000 US dollars) to the Lammas ecovillage, based in Pembrokeshire, Wales, to build an educational community center that will introduce strategies for low-impact development to the public. The Lammas ecovillage was established due to a recent local planning initiative permitting small,… Read More
Brooklyn Co-housing in the New York Post
Posted on December 7, 2009 byNew York Magazine profiled Brooklyn Co-housing, the first co-housing community in New York City, in an in-depth article recently. This is a level of group interaction that the co-housers haven’t been able to find anywhere else in the city, and that they are betting other New Yorkers would enjoy, too. “There’s this thing called community”… Read More
Missouri’s Dancing Rabbit featured in St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Posted on October 26, 2009 byDancing Rabbit Ecovillage is profiled in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch! Residents of Missouri’s Dancing Rabbit test the limits of green living Missouri is home to more than 50 “intentional communities,” a broad term that includes communes, co-housing, and student co-ops. Ecovillages also fall under that umbrella, but what sets them apart is residents’ dedication to… Read More
NY Times brings attention to emerging collectives in urban centers
Posted on October 9, 2009 byA recent NY Times article profiles several urban households that are currently forming small collectives. FIC‘s Laird Schaub shares details about the recent surge in community. JOHANNA BRONK wants to make communal vegetarian meals and keep chickens. Mariel Berger hopes for social, artistic and political collaborations. Harmony Hazard is into hula hooping, book groups and… Read More
Preparing for UN conference on climate change, international bloggers are focused on community
Posted on September 30, 2009 byShort videos of Dyssekilde Ecovillage were created by participants in THINK2 Climate Change, a 3-month international blogging competition organized by the European Journalism Centre, focused on the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. To launch the competition, bloggers were brought to Denmark and toured the 25 year old ecovillage, a pioneering example of… Read More
Couple embark on a bike tour/documentary film project exploring Intentional Communities
Posted on September 6, 2009 by2 Comments
Scott Merzbach of The Amherst Bulletin has written a piece on a San Francisco couple who are touring communities nation-wide, compiling footage and interviews for a new documentary on sustainable living. A San Francisco couple’s 12,000-mile bicycle tour around the country has connected them to a simpler life. It is also teaching them how to… Read More
Owenstown, a large-scale eco-village, is proposed in rural Scotland
Posted on September 2, 2009 byAn article by Helen McArdle in Scotland’s Sunday Herald describes plans for Owenstown, the first new town founded in Scotland for several decades. The community, based on cooperative principles, is named for Robert Owen, a visionary 19th century socialist who established the New Lanark Community in Scotland and New Harmony in the United States. Dubbed… Read More
Profile of EcoVillage at Ithaca
Posted on August 24, 2009 byThe Star, a major Malaysian newspaper, profiled EcoVillage at Ithaca in an online article this week, introducing readers to the ecovillage model and interviewing several community residents. A ‘village’ in upstate New York shows that you can nurture community values and tread lightly on the planet without forgoing modern living. Read full article here.
Thriving Creative Community at Milepost 5 in Portland, Oregon
Posted on August 23, 2009 byAn article this week in The Oregonian describes the flourishing artistic community at Milepost 5. When the Milepost 5 dream – a development where artists could work, and rent or buy affordable condos – took flight in 2007, Portland’s condo market was still healthy. City leaders were getting serious about supporting the “creative class” considered… Read More
Cohousing and Peak Oil Video on Peak Moment TV
Posted on September 15, 2008 byPeak Moment TV has a 30 minute video on cohousing featuring Bellingham Cohousing in Bellingham, WA.
CNN – Simple Living and Eco Communities
Posted on August 25, 2008 byCNN has had two articles on community in the past few weeks, one on simple living and one on eco-communities in the UK. The simple living article profiles a woman at the Keystone Ecological Urban Center in Chicago. Keri Rainsberger isn’t rich. She works in the nonprofit world for a relatively low-profit salary. Yet, as… Read More
Aquittal in Ganas Shooting
Posted on August 6, 2008 byBecky James, the woman accused of shooting Ganas member Jeff Gross, was aquitted on all charges by a New York Jury. A woman was cleared of all charges Monday in the shooting of a commune founder nearly killed by a shadowy figure on the stairwell of his compound. The jury took less than five hours… Read More
Just Improved Communes?
Posted on July 31, 2008 byThe Times Online and the Sunday Times (of London) carried an article on both the utopian and the practical aspects of community living. The article features an existing co-housing developments in the UK, Community Project of South Downs. Benefits such as shared child rearing, help in times of health crisis, and shared resources are mentioned.… Read More
Green Living in Community
Posted on July 30, 2008 byWith oil prices on the rise, conserving energy is once again a hot topic in the news. Several articles have appeared recently on “green” living at intentional communities. Boston.com, WFAA-8 (the ABC affiliate in Dallas/Fort Worth), and the Baltimore Sun are among the news outlets running an Associated Press article highlighting market trends toward “green”… Read More
Obituaries for Kat Kinkade
Posted on July 29, 2008 byCommunity founder and author Kat Kinkade passed away in July at the age of 77. Kinkade was involved in the founding of Twin Oaks, East Wind, and Acorn, and published two memoirs of life at Twin Oaks, A Walden Two Experiment, and Is it Utopia Yet?. Several US newspapers, including the New York Times and… Read More
Cultural Integration in Vermont
Posted on July 18, 2008 byVermont Public Radio carried a news magazine about how intentional communities interacted with the surrounding rural culture in Vermont. The program description states, Our guest Tom Fels of North Bennington has just published a book on the network of communal farms that he was part of in northwestern Massachusetts and southern Vermont. Also with us… Read More
Preserving Farmland in Pennsylvania
Posted on July 12, 2008 byThe CBS News television affiliate in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, WHP-TV, reports on the green features of Hundredfold Farm, a new co-housing development in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The television spot is more in-depth, mentioning the farmland preservation, energy efficiency, and on-site waste water treatment achieved by the community. Hundredfold Farm is a co-housing community in Adams County. It… Read More
Sustainability Education at Findhorn Ecovillage
Posted on July 8, 2008 byThe Times Educational Supplement, a publication for teachers in the UK, has an article about the educational opportunities at Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland. The article starts with a brief nod to Findhorn‘s legendary gardens and faerie/angel culture but mostly focuses on the ecovillage’s sustainability education programs. Here’s an excerpt: The Findhorn Foundation is a charitable… Read More
