"There are no examples of fully realized ecovillages as of this writing." - Tony Sirna, 2000, What Is Ecovillage?
Ecovillages are a myth - faerie tales told to wide-eyed children at bedtime.
- Q: What is an EcoVillage ?
- A: An ecologically-minded village of people.
- Q: So what is a village ?
- A: Bigger than a hamlet, smaller than a town.
- Q: Do what?
- 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.
Hmmm... Is that 100 people, 500 people ?
First 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 ?
At 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.
What do you think ?