{"id":6617,"key":"Criticisms_of_ecovillages","title":"Criticisms of ecovillages","latest":{"id":1206616,"timestamp":"2025-11-27T20:30:30Z"},"content_model":"wikitext","license":{"url":"https://www.appropedia.org/Appropedia:Copyrights","title":"CC-BY-SA-4.0"},"source":"[[File:Uformelt i DK ecovillage Denmark - Dyssekilde ecovillage økolandsby.jpg|thumb]]\n\n\"There are no examples of fully realized ecovillages as of this writing.\" - Tony Sirna, 2000,\n[http://web.archive.org/web/20130919082638/http://www.ic.org/pnp/cdir/2000/08ecovillage.php What Is Ecovillage?]\n\nEcovillages are a myth - faerie tales told to wide-eyed children at bedtime.\n\n:Q: What is an EcoVillage ?\n:A: An ecologically-minded village of people.\n:Q: So what is a village ?\n:A: Bigger than a hamlet, smaller than a town.\n:Q: Do what?\n:A: In England, a hamlet denotes a collection of houses, too small to have a parish church. A village has a church, but no market. A town has both a market and a church or churches.\n\nHmmm... Is that 100 people, 500 people ?\n\nFirst of all, a market implies that the village members have some amount of surplus production. If there is no surplus, there is no market, and therefor no village. A market also implies that the villagers are exchanging a significant portion of their goods and services with each other. Since one hundred percent is impossible, what is significant ? Fifty percent ? Can one-hundred people produce/consume enough surplus to provide 50 percent of each others needs ?\n\nAt what standard of living ? Lower the standard of living sufficiently, and any number of people can be provided for. Perhaps it is possible in a third-world setting. Maybe that is why there are no eco-villages in the United States.\n\nWhat do you think ?\n\n== See also ==\n\n* [[Ecovillage]]\n\n{{Page data\n| license = CC-BY-SA-3.0\n}}\n\n[[Category:Ecovillages]]"}