Tired of the city? The isolation? It might be time to consider joining one of the hundreds of eco-communities around the world. From Findhorn in Scotland to kibbutz in Israel to the Camphill community in Norway, Growing Eco-Communities by Jan Martin Bang explores what it means to form a lasting community.
This is the second community book Martin Bang has written —his first title EcoVillages —explained the how and why of setting up a sustainable community. In Growing Eco-Communities: Practical Ways to Create Sustainability he explores what to expect after you set up the community. Growing Eco-Communities takes the reader through the various phases of community as they grow and change. “This book is an attempt to give some advice and insights into the life cycle of communities,” writes Martin Bang.
In Growing Eco-Communities, Martin Bang posits that people and community function better in village-sized groups. He argues that people can have daily contact with about several hundred individuals a day before that contact becomes impersonal. However, eco-villages are as unique as the people that create them. “They vary significantly because they are based on either abstract ideas or religion, or a mixture of the two,” he explains.
Growing Eco-Communities is a must read for anyone who is interested in creating or living in an intentional community.
Eco-villages that exist around the globe range from a handful of people living quietly together to communities of 1000 members. The communities all go through similar phases as they grow and this is what Growing Eco-Communities documents with insight and experiential examples.
The first stage is the Youthful phase and what Martin Bang describes as “…often the most exciting period of a community’s existence”. During this time people work harder, share more jobs and responsibilities and work to figure out how the community will grow and make decisions. The Maturity and Stability phase is where the community chooses new members, kicks out any troublemakers, builds their business and integrates with the surrounding community. Martin Bang explains the second phase as “…where communities settle down, gain a greater and hopefully stronger sense of identity”. The third and final phase is Old Age. In this phase, communities are established; perhaps have several generations of members, increased specialization and the privatization of their economy.
Growing Eco-Communities is a must read for anyone who is interested in creating or living in an intentional community.
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Visit: http://www.florisbooks.co.uk/
Publisher: Floris Books
237 Pages
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