Sustainable Communities According to the World
Wildlife Fund, people are currently using resources 25 percent faster than they
can be replaced. If we continue down this course, we will need a second planet
by the year 2050. Sustainable communities attempt to change that course by
drastically altering how citizens interact with the environment.
Alternatively known as green communities or ecovillages (生态村), sustainable
communities vary in their approaches to sustainable living, or a way of life
that meets the population’s basic needs in ways that can be continued
indefinitely for future generations. Some communities focus solely on enriching
the environment, while others also aim to improve social and economic conditions
as well. Characteristics of Sustainable Living Communities
Sustainable communities generally strive to minimize waste, reduce
consumption and preserve open space. Ideally, they don’t use resources faster
than they can be replenished, and they don’t produce waste faster than it can be
assimilated back into the environment. Granted, some communities are more
radical than others--living entirely off the grid and eschewing the use of
government:--printed money--but the basic principles are similar.
Designing the neighborhood to encourage walking or bicycling is one way
sustainable communities put these first two principles into practice. Less
driving means less gas and emissions. Many ecovillages also incorporate work
space into homes or encourage telecommuting. They also might zone part of the
development for commercial use, essentially making the community a
serf-contained environment where residents don’t even have to leave for shopping
or entertainment. This design sometimes is called a live- work-play
lifestyle. Using green building techniques is another staple of
sustainable communities. Here are a few examples: · Architects
design buildings to take advantage of the sun’s lighting and heating
capabilities. · They install energy-efficient
appliances. · They try to use local sources of materials as much
as possible to cut back on the environmental costs of transport.
· They build with durable, non-toxic materials that have either been
recycled or sustainably harvested. You might see straw bale (草捆)
houses, which essentially use bales of straw as the structural building blocks;
cob houses, which are a mix of straw, clay and sand or earthbag homes, which are
exactly what they sound like, homes made out of bags of dirt.
Along with green building techniques, sustainable communities rely on
green gardening methods. They landscape with native, drought-tolerant plants and
raise them organically to reduce water and keep pesticides and herbicides out of
the environment. Many communities also set aside a significant
portion of their land as open space. Serenbe, for example, reserves 80 percent
of its 900 acres for green space, that is, 720 acres of rolling hills, woods and
streams free of development, quite a contrast to the concrete-laden urban sprawl
of Atlanta just 32 miles away. Another way sustainable
communities reduce their ecological footprint is by capturing and recycling
their wastes, often creating their own contained natural cycles. Instead of
treating normally perceived waste products such as rainwater and sewage as
pollution to be gotten rid of, residents mm them into resources. Sewage, for
example, is turned into compost that fertilizes plants and increases soil
productivity, while captured rainwater is cleansed through innovative filtering
systems and reused for watering plants. Examples of Sustainable
Communities More than 400 ecovillages exist in the world,
according to the Global Ecovillage Network database. The following examples
outline life in just two of these communities. Dancing Rabbit
Ecovillage, Missouri. Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is a developing 280-acre
community in northeastern Missouri with far-reaching goals. It aims to be an
entirely self-reliant town that practices "radical environmental
sustainability’, according to the community’s website. The town’s founders hope
to attract between 500 and 1 000 residents to create a diverse community more
capable of providing for all of its own needs. Dancing Rabbit even has its own
local currency to encourage local trading and sourcing of jobs.
The ecovillage has established a set of six guidelines that may seem
extreme to the lazy environ- mentalists among us, but should set the town well
on its way towards achieving sustainability. 1. No vehicles are
to be used or stored in the village. 2. Fossil fuels for cars,
refrigeration, heating and cooling homes, as well heating domestic water aren’t
allowed. 3. All gardening must be organic. 4.
All power must come from renewable resources. 5. No lumber from
outside the local area is allowed unless it is recycled or salvaged.
6. Organic waste and recyclable materials are to be reincorporated into
usable products through composting methods. Long term, Dancing
Rabbit citizens are trying to achieve negative population growth. If they want
the current 50 or so residents to become 500 or I 000, they may want to rethink
that last guideline. Los Angeles Ecovillage, California. You
might think sustainable communities have to be set in the country, but that’s
not true. Located just three miles west of downtown Los Angeles, the Los Angeles
Ecovillage (LAEV) is a community of 500 residents seeking to have minimal impact
on the environment while also providing a fulfilling way of life. The urban
location near public transit, schools, churches, commercial services and
industry helps residents drive less, while the dozens of gardens and fruit trees
provide a local source of food. LAEV takes a whole-systems
approach to sustainability, meaning that residents strive to balance’ the
social, economic and environmental needs of the community. Here, clean water and
air rank up there with close-knit relationships, ethnic diversity and affordable
housing. Citizens have saved 20 tons of brick from the landfill to use in
construction projects, composted over 100 cubic yards of yard waste and held
countless weekly potluck dinners to establish and strengthen relationships. Who
knew that sustainability could be possible even in one of the largest, most
polluted cities in the United States Other Eco-Friendly
Communities Residents of the two sustainable communities we
just discussed deliberately placed sustainability at the top of their agenda.
But communities spring up for lots of reasons not related to the environment,
and sometimes the Earth benefits. Before "green" was the new
buzzword and sustainability was cool, Old Order Amish communities were quietly
co-existing with the planet since the early 18th century. While members of this
religious group didn’t consciously develop their way of life to help the
environment, their simple farm-based living doesn’t hurt it. The
Amish use horses to power their farm equipment and to get around. Their homes
have no electricity; instead, they use lanterns (灯笼) for light. In stark
contrast to the rampant consumerism visible in many countries, the Amish do not
own things they don’t need. They wear simple clothes, and their houses are
sparsely furnished. Amish communities didn’t have to "return to the earth" to
achieve their brand of sustainability. They were there all along.
Cohousing developments offer another example of a living arrangement that
unwittingly(未觉察地) practices sustainability. These developments typically are
designed to encourage and strengthen social relationships, rather than to tread
lightly on the environment, but, as it turns out, the two often go hand in hand.
Although residents in a cohousing development enjoy the privacy of their own
homes, they share a common building and other resources. Sharing
major appliances like washing machines, power tools and heavy exercise equipment
forces you to interact with your neighbors while reducing resource use. In
addition, it allows individual houses to be smaller, which, along with the
clustered arrangement of homes, preserves land. People who own cars (some people
share cars) park them on the sides of the neighborhood to create a pedestrian
friendly environment safe for children. Several times a week, residents may also
eat a shared meal in the common building to strengthen ties. Cooking for many on
one stove is much more energy efficient than cooking for 20 on separate
stoves. Residents of Old Order Amish communities began unconsciously to practise sustainable living from ______.