CoHousing, EcoVillage and Intentional Community may be terms you are not familiar with just yet or you may have heard of them, but don’t really know what they mean. Geoff Kozeny describes an intentional community: “a group of people who have chosen to live together with a common purpose, working cooperatively to create a lifestyle that reflects their shared core values.” Wikipedia describes it as “a planned residential community designed from the start to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork.” So from these definitions the fact that we have a common house (some might call it a community center) where we plan to share meals and govern the community together would make us an intentional community. If you add in the belief that solar electricity and recycling are a good thing, not only are we an intentional community, but we start to become an eco-village at that point.
The oxford dictionary says an eco-village is a community whose inhabitants seek to live in a way that has minimal impact on the environment. Others use the word sustainable to describe eco-villages. Dictionary.com will help us with THAT one: sustainable, pertaining to a system that maintains its own viability by using techniques that allow for continual reuse. So if we put in a grey water system and reuse the water on the plants, voila we are a sustainable eco-village, too! Our smaller footprint houses puts us in that minimal impact space as well as having on-site waste systems and using well water from the property. That all adds up to a minimal impact. Having water and waste going through huge pipes over hundred of miles is major impact and that’s not us. We also will be producing our own electricity.
But wait there’s more! What about co-housing? Wikipedia to the rescue again: “Cohousing is an intentional community of private homes clustered around shared space. [check] Each attached or single family home has traditional amenities, including a private kitchen. [check] Shared spaces typically feature a common house, which may include a large kitchen and dining area, laundry, and recreational spaces. [check,check,check] Shared outdoor space may include parking, walkways, open space, and gardens. [check, check, check] Neighbors also share resources like tools and lawnmowers. [check check] Hmm. Looks like we might be co-housing. So in going to cohousing.org they add to the definition, “That means residents actively participate in the design and operation of their neighborhoods.” We get a half check on that one. Most residents of Springbrook Village will not have actively participated in the design, but they will in the operation of their neighborhood.
So I guess Springbrook Village is a combination: a group of people who want to live more sustainably, know their neighbors better and have a high Popsicle Index. Ok you say, what the heck is a Popsicle Index? It’s a term coined by Catherine Austin Fitts: The Popsicle Index is the % of people in a community who believe that a child can leave their home, go to the nearest place to buy a Popsicle and come home alone safely. Of course in our Village it would more likely be go to the common house kitchen and get a Popsicle, but you get the idea. It is a little far for little kids to walk to Walmart three miles to get a Popsicle, but they could bicycle there when they are older.
All in all, Springbrook Village is a pretty awesome place to live for any age, whatever you consider it: intentional community, eco-village, co-housing, or just a great neighborhood…
