re: ecovillages and social change

Our Altair EcoVillage project had been stalled due to lack of funds. But a couple of investing households have come forward recently enabling us to start making progress again.

There are complaints about the projected home prices: upwards of $400,000. “How can that be presented as living lightly?”

The home prices are in line with market-rate prices in the area. We wish they could be lower than market-rate … but the unavoidable infrastructure expenses (sanitation, stormwater management, utilities provision, etc.) are about the same whether a project includes 20 homes or 100 homes; when spread out over just 30 homes, as is our intention, the cost of each home has to absorb those expenses.

So the prices of the homes will not seem to reflect “living more lightly.” But the carrying costs going forward will be lower than typical due to eco-savings: energy from solar, sharing of resources, some self-provision of food.

Re: the home prices and the middle-class amenities (for saleability) … the complaints from purists are understandable. Humanity has to cut down its ecological footprint by 90% and Altair will cut it by maybe 10%. But most enduring social change can only happen incrementally. Look throughout all of history and you’ll see that radical revolutionary change doesn’t last. People just can’t change their lifeways all so suddenly and dramatically.

Publicizing the word ‘ecovillage’ and modeling a degree of change in the direction of sustainability is significant: ‘eco’ = ecology and ‘village’ = community. Every such project will actualize a little differently, with varying transformative aspects and impacts. Every incremental step toward eco-communitarian sanity is commendable.