Many Eco-Communities are anti-capitalist in nature and are founded on a quest to radically reduce the cost of housing and everyday living expenses. The Kalish Eco-village located in Portland, Oregon USA was designed with the intention of building inclusive urban spaces that resist the exclusivity of the neoliberal housing market.
Loneliness and isolation are commonly reported issues of city dwellers. Eco-communities are designed in a way that neighbors often interact with each other through shared spaces and community projects while providing mutual support.
A goal of eco-communities is to transform spaces that are often overlooked into a productive space that engages community members. Raise-bed gardens can be built in neglected areas and improve the quality of life for the neighborhood by supplying food. This embodies the goals of guerilla gardening, yet is intentionally planned in the design of the community.
According to Regen Villages and smart city expert, James Ehrlich, the following qualities must be connected and mobilized to enact grassroots change:
These are the features that elevate an eco-home to an eco-community and extend the home from beyond the house.
An issue with over-consuming energy is how little it is thought about. Civilizations have shifted from being built around their energy source, to not even knowing where their energy is coming from. This disconnect contributes to a lack of energy consciousness and ignorance about how energy works.
While Eco-homes implement architectural features to create a more energy efficient home, it is important to couple this with a behavior change towards energy
Eco- Communities engage members with the production and use of energy, helping to manage consumption. Eco- communities implement a variety of sustainable energy technologies, such as wind and solar which power the communities. "Community Energy" is a growing Grassroots initiative where people are taking democratic climate action towards their energy production by understanding, generating, owning, and saving energy while creating a more resilient community.
When communities are informed about and involved in their energy production, the mystery of where power comes from disappears and individuals are empowered. Community energy is a big step towards a just transition to a zero-carbon energy system.
Community energy is an important factor that separates eco-communities from eco-homes.
While individual action is important, it is collective action that makes the biggest change. Community led and delivered energy creates a sense of collective purpose that can help to normalize the reduction of energy consumption and encourage others to take action in energy efficiency. Pooling of resources allows people to come together and decide what energy systems will work best in their area. This also creates a sense of trust within the community energy system because the people have a hand in energy decision making and can see tangible benefits for the community. Community energy involves a fair benefit distribution and encourages a reduction of energy consumption, adding to the overall affordability of life in an eco-community.
There are several benefits of building in a community, rather than solo builds that encompass place as a social and emotional aspect. The people that inhabit an area and the connections they have with each other is another feature of place which enables mutual success in eco-building.
Benefits of communal building:
"Community" as a mode of relating is about moving beyond individualism to connection.
The idea of shared spaces within a community contributes to the affordability and social lives of community living. The homes themselves are usually smaller in eco-communities, but the trade off is access to public spaces and shared common infrastructures. Affordability is maintained through the sharing of external costs such as child and elderly care, bike sharing, and growing food rather than spending money at a grocery market.
Repurposing marginalized public spaces seeks to transform the urban beyond their properties. reworking, reclaiming, and reusing property often takes form as community projects which deepen the sense of community through collaboration and create more shared spaces and even benefit distribution.
While eco-homes are brilliant solutions to an uneven housing market facing environmental disparities, involving a group of people to make similar changes to their homes on a neighborhood scale creates a larger impact than just one home could. Once an eco-home is built, it generally stays the way it is. Eco-communities are constantly evolving and finding ways to improve. Sharing of spaces and goals encourages sharing of ideas and collaboration of residents' skills to further improve the function of eco-communities and facilitates multi-directional learning among community members.
Eco-homes and communities are not readily made solutions for decarbonizing cities, as they are ever evolving . While there is a lot to be learned from eco-communities, there is still so much to learn. More questions must be asked to help bridge gaps of inequality and implement just transitions.
How can a sense of belonging in eco-communities be extended across class and race to encompass more than the historically white and middle class community members?
12.4 million Americans live in high poverty neighborhoods. Understanding housing discrimination and structural inequalities in housing and land use can help broaden our understanding of the housing crisis and bring solutions to dwelling disparities to the surface.
There are parts of the world where examples of eco-homes are abundant while others have few to none. Understanding this uneven development can aid in creating just low carbon transitions.
The ways place is transformed can reveal a great deal about the intentions, perspectives, and visions of eco-builders. Good intentions do not always reap good outcomes.
1.6 billion people lack adequate housing. What political, technological, economic, and cultural barriers are there in eco-homes being built in minority world countries?
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Lisa Fields
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