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CommunityBeyond Peak Oil |
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If you find this page interesting, why not buy the whole book? Peak Oil Prep is an expanded, paperback version of this Beyond Peak website. You can order it right now and have your own copy in just a few days. |
Communities are as much a state of mind as they are a physical thing. We've created this page to focus both on communities as intentionally-designed gatherings of habitation as well as the larger "communities" that most of us live in, whether small town, suburb or city, that already existed prior to our arrival.
The information we provide here in most cases requires long-term planning and efforts. But, who knows? Maybe you've got the time.
We suggest that you also visit our Neighborhoods page.
Many people are very aware of the need to revitalize our communities. Urban cores have decayed, and the suburbs have led to oil-fueled isolation. But there are many things that can be done to change this.
A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction
Architect Christopher Alexander's almost legendary opus on the elements that make a building or an entire town truly human. [book]
Alexander's website Pattern Language is also highly recommended. You'll find lots of information and resources.
A guide to building community. Highly recommended.
Helping communities and organizations build collaboration and consensus.
U.S. organization dedicated to the development, growth and enhancement of small local communities with a focus on dealing with Peak Oil.
Creating self-reliant communities in a global age [book]
Local Government Commission (LGC)
Working to build livable communities
Center for Livable Communities
From the LGC. Extensive information and resources
Natural Step for Communities, The
How cities and towns can change to sustainable practices [book]
Partners for Livable Communities
Working to improve the livability of communities by promoting quality of life, economic development, and social equity.
Sierra Club on livable communities. Lots of information and resources.
Cohousing is collaborative housing that attempts to overcome the alienation of modern subdivisions in which no one knows his neighbors, and there is no sense of community.
It is characterized by private dwellings with their own kitchen, living-dining room etc, but also extensive common facilities. The common building may include a large dining room, kitchen, lounges, meeting rooms, recreation facilities, library, workshops, childcare.
Usually, cohousing communities are designed and managed by the residents, and are intentional neighborhoods: the people are consciously committed to living as a community; the physical design itself encourages that and facilitates social contact.
The typical cohousing community has 20 to 30 single family homes along a pedestrian street or clustered around one or more courtyards. Residents of cohousing communities often have several optional group meals in the common building each week.
This type of housing began in Denmark in the late 1960s, and spread to North America in the late 1980s. There are now more than 80 cohousing communities across the continent, with many more in progress.
While cohousing could be considered simply a neighborhood when it's done in, or on the edge of, an existing city, we've included it on our Community page because of the strong sense of community which is its focus.
A contemporary approach to housing ourselves [book]
Cohousing Association of the United States
Community list, products and services, resources, news
The people that pioneered cohousing in North America
It takes a village to raise an adult. We all need villages, even if they're just mini-villages in urban areas. (We call those "neighborhoods". ) Many people around the planet are working together to create new, or modify old, communities to be sustainable, to focus on humans not cars, and to provide healthy, people-friendly places to work, play, grow and learn.
How to build an urban village. [book]
A Guide to Intentional Communities and Cooperative Living [book]
Practical Tools to Grow Ecovillages and Intentional Communities [book]
Restoring the Earth and Her People [book]
A practical guide to sustainable communities [book]
A global confederation of people and communities, both urban and rural, that meet and share ideas, exchange technologies, and develop cultural and educational exchanges, directories and newsletters. An outstanding resource.
A worldwide guide to ecovillages, cohousing, residential land trusts, communes, student co-ops, urban housing cooperatives and other related projects and dreams.
Toward Sustainable Communities
Resources for Citizens and Their Governments [book]
It's probably too late to get to one of these, but at least you might be able to get some ideas from them.
Gaviotas: A Village to Reinvent the World [book]
Curitiba, Brazil deserves its own section. What the city has done is incredible yet other cities could do it too. Finally, some are starting.
Creative Curitiba - the urban design of Curitiba, Brazil
Excellent article in The Architectural Review
Article by Bill McKibben in Mother Jones
Curitiba: Jaime Lerner's Urban Acupuncture
From BrazilMax.com
Interview from MassiveChange.com
Sociologist Ray Oldenburg has coined the term "third place" for the places where community members informally hang out to socialize, discuss business deals, and talk about their lives and their community. The first place is home, the second is work. Third places are not private clubs, but locations where anyone in the community can drop by, have a cup of coffee or a beer, say hello to friends and join in on a conversation.
Third Places are disappearing everywhere as small, local businesses have a harder and harder time competing with chains (such as Starbuck's, which considers itself a third place), and as local taverns and bookstores disappear from the scene.
A community with no third places is no community. Check out Third Place Commons in the Seattle area, which was actually created as a third place, rather than being one that evolved over the years. Here's some information on its history.
Inspiring Stories About the "Great Good Places" at the Heart of Our Communities. Edited by Oldenburg. [book]
Cafes, Coffee Shops, Bookstores, Bars, Hair Salons, and Other Hangouts at the Heart of a Community. Oldenburg's original book. [book]
