What Is An Eco-Village?

Sieben Linden EcovillageWikimedia

Many people have probably heard about ecovillages, but very few people probably know exactly what an ecovillage is and what separates such a thing from a normal village. According to ecovillage.org, an ecovillage is 'an intentional, traditional or urban community that is consciously designed through locally owned participatory processes in all four dimensions of sustainability (social, culture, ecology, and economy) to regenerate social and natural environments.' Basically, it is a village that tries to limit the impact it has on the environment while having a self-sustained economy, unique social structure, and unique culture usually unified around some kind of ideal or ideology.

The definition of an ecovillage is pretty broad, almost entirely by design. Within this definition, there are two general categories for an ecovillage. One category is traditional ecovillages, which tend to be based around existing rural villages or transforming parts of a pre-existing rural community to design a sustainable community. Another kind of ecovillage is an intentional community where people come together with a shared purpose or vision (in either a remote area or urban region) in order to create a new village from scratch.

Ecovillages have existed throughout human history, but the modern-day desire for people to try to create such societies was generally reinvigorated by the hippie movement and the "back to the land" movement that started getting popular in the 1960s and 1970s. One of the communities of the "back to the land" movement that is still around today is the Miccosukee Land Co-op in Tallahassee, Florida which was founded back in May 1973 and contains over ninety acres of land for the community to live on. Since then, plenty of self-identified ecovillages have popped up in the United States and across the globe!