The ecovillages must eventually be full home places

Most of the current ecovillages should be viewed as demonstration projects. They model “best practices.” But they are too thin to truly and fully prefigure home places for significant numbers of people.

So it’s not surprising to hear that people don’t stay. In particular, it’s not surprising to hear that there is a dearth of young families. Even the Ecovillage at Ithaca, having three neighborhoods, a hundred units, and 230 residents, suffers from the latter conundrum and wonders what to do about it.

Solution for EVI:

Build out the five neighborhoods originally envisioned. Thus achieve a critical mass of children, making sensible the idea of having a school located within EVI.

Naturally it will be an especially appealing school, along the lines of how the whole community is especially appealing. Young families then will flock to become residents.