[carfreeecovillages]--new list, + "Sustainable"/Green Community Development (fwd)

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0AJX/7_64/54896275/p1/article.jhtml

was posted to the carfreeecovillages list-
It is a good article!

I'll also take this opportunity to announce the carfreeecovillages list to
BACFC and Carfree_cities.

here is the link to the list:
http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/carfreeecovillages

here is Soif's press release announcing the list:
please post it wherever others might find it relevant!

From: Francois Schneider <[email protected]>
Subject: [carfree_conf3] presentation of list
carfreeecovillages-3hfIC0tI0F+k/[email protected] for the bulletin

Here is a presentation for the bulletin
greetings to all

+++++++++++++++++++++++++
The list server carfreeecovillages-3hfIC0tI0F+k/[email protected] is opening.
For "carbusting of the countryside".

We wish to explore visions of ecovillages car-free and free of car
dependency and share experiences and solutions. The list would also serve as
support for the practical set-up of one or more ecovillages in Europe or
elsewhere. The discussion should integrate different aspects including
transportation, food production, construction and energy to make it a truly
carfree ecovillage.

Cars destroy villages as they suppress the need of people to live close to
each others. The result is (like in cities): low life quality with road
transit, land destruction, danger, pollution, no small shops and
dissemination of housing... Villages might be fundamentally compatible with
carfreeness. On the opposite we can hardly imagine a car-free sprawl!

Sign up at http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/carfreeecovillages
and spread the word!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++



Another longer version:

Opening of a new list-serve carfreeecovillages-3hfIC0tI0F+k/[email protected] Welcome to the list!

The purpose of this list-serve would be to discuss and organize the creation of one or more explicitly car-free ecovillages in Europe and anywhere.

A carfree ecovillage is not accessible by car and the inhabitants do not rely on the automobiles for their activities. In its optimal setting, the carfree village would not have a parking lot even far away but still be a site where many people could visit, meet and develop activities.

The Car-free idea is for now mainly an urban dream. According to the general opinion, you just cannot live without a car in the countryside and even in so-called eco-villages. It is strange because the village type structure has been mainly car-free for a long time (there was only an "impossibility" of living without a car in villages in the last 50 years at most in around 9.000 years of existence of villages). And many villages are living without cars still now.

The big problem of living without cars in villages is that others have cars (and it is hard to convince them not to). In a carfree ecovillage we would create enough cooperation, enough critical mass of car-free heroes, to make things easy. In its design a carfree village needs to integrate all aspects globally, and especially the proximity requirements, the recycling and integration in the nature for food, energy and construction.

The challenge could support many innovations: super trailors, cooperation with train company, teleferic transport, bike taxis, all sorts of bike types, bike powered washing machines, grinders, computers, pumps, but everything remains to be invented...

Soif

Francois Schneider
Quinta do boicao
2670-632
Bucelas
Portugal
tel: +351 21 968 14 12
[email protected]




---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 8 Apr 2003 22:19:28 -0700
From: Mike Morin <mikemorin>
Subject: [carfreeecovillages] "Sustainable"/Green Community Development

Check out:

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m0AJX/7_64/54896275/p1/article.jhtml


MM