Eco-Villages Rising Slowly, But Steadily

"Today, Arcosanti is three percent complete, and only 60 residents have committed to live there permanently. The current site has housing, a café, a bakery, a convenience store, a small agricultural area and a theater, built mostly through volunteer labor. About 6,000 students have come from all over the world to attend workshops at Arcosanti and help complete the buildings since the project started."

"'We thought we would build the whole thing in five years and then go around the world building these great compact urban centers,' says Mary Hoadley who has been involved in the project since the 1970s and serves as Arcosanti’s site coordinator. 'The fact that we haven’t been able to build out more of it makes it harder to convince people that it is a good way to go.' To Soleri, now 88, Arcosanti’s limited success can be attributed to the powerful and pervasive culture of materialism which prevents society from considering alternative lifestyles."

"Soleri’s ideas are making their way into the mainstream as people, concerned about the environment, look for ways to live more sustainably, a trend clarified in a report released last year by the Worldwatch Institute."

"According to the study, the 379 'eco-villages' registered with the Global Eco-Village Network (110 of them in North America) are proof of changing attitudes. Eco-villages are defined by Worldwatch as 'human scale, full-featured settlements in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy hu-man development, and can be successfully con-tinued into the indefinite future.'"