The city of Ithaca was second on the list of Greenest Cities in part due to the work of the Ecovillage at Ithaca an intentional community with two 30-home cohousing clusters. The Ecovillage was recently featured in Time magazine and is a great example of a community moving towards sustainability.
Move.com profiled Ithaca and highlighted the Ecovillage as a major part of the cities green ranking:
The village is already at work on phase two: future developments are being considered and will likely include more accessible and affordable housing, a charter school, an education center, village-scale wind power, organic orchards, a roadside farm stand, graywater recycling, on-site biological wastewater treatment center, biomass energy crops, shuttle van, carshare, a natural cemetery, onsite biodiesel/vegetable-oil fuel production, and educational programs.
Not surprisingly most of the top green cities on the list are home to ecovillages, cohousing, and other forms of intentional community. Are communities attracted to green cities or are cities made green by community? I’m sure the answer is both.
