Growing Eco-Communities: Practical Ways to Create Sustainability

In his first book, Ecovillages: A Practical Guide to Sustainable Communities, Jan Martin Bang explained the principles and practice of setting up a sustainable community, including the difficult decisions of management, design, architecture, farming and food, water, sewage, energy sources, and economics.

Growing Eco-Communities looks at what comes next. Groups aren't fixed by those earlier decisions and directions but grow and develop--and not always as expected. Here the author provides a comprehensive overview of the various changes that groups can experience and offers experienced advice on how to handle the many situations that can arise. As in Ecovillages, this book is anchored by numerous case studies of real-life communities and how they've dealt with change.

Included are sections on the "pioneering phase" (including "everybody does everything" and making decisions over dinner); the "maturity and stability phase" (procedures for new members and rules and individual needs); and "old age" (as the "professionals" take over, the next generation arrives, and problems of "dynasty"). Jan Bang's topics also include issues of flexibility, self-sufficiency, neighbors, technology, spirituality, and money.

This is a candid, inspiring, and practical book that should be essential reading for anyone involved in a community or non-residential group, club or association.

Jan Martin Bang has spent a lifetime working in alternative communities, ranging frm the kibbutz in Israel to his present home in the Solborg Camphill community in Norway. He leads training and development for new ecovillage projects around the world.