Articles & Posts about EVI

2024: Fitzsimons: EcoVillage demonstrates community and personal growth (The Ithacan). Tucked in on Ithaca’s West Hill is EcoVillage, a sustainable living community that allows people of all ages to live in sustainably built homes and contribute to their communities.

2023 Cameron: Community Decarbonization in Ecovillage at Ithaca (Communities Magazine Issue 200: Adaptation). A neighborhood within Ecovillage at Ithaca explores decarbonization.

2022 Ecovillage at Ithaca. vol 34 (Honey Magazine). Japanese magazine profile of EVI, interview with Liz Walker

2022 Nagel: Pumpkins Are Passé, Gourds Are Glamorous (Ithaca Times). What is Gourdlandia? It’s a place that honors the gourd, according to owner and gourd artist Graham Ottoson.

2022: 5 of the World's Coolest Ecovillages (EcoWatch). Ecovillages are intentional communities designed to be environmentally, socially, and/or economically sustainable.

2019 Franke: Signs of Sustainability: The sixth extinction? (Tompkins Weekly) The passage discusses historical mass extinctions on Earth and the fortuitous K-T mass extinction that paved the way for mammalian evolution.

2019 Franke: Steps to Sustainability: photosynthesis (Tompkins Weekly)The passage explores the inefficiency of meat consumption, highlighting the "10% rule" where animals capture only about 10% of plant biomass for growth.

2017 Franke: Signs of Sustainability: Systems Thinking – The Historical Background (Tompkins Weekly)
The article introduces the concept of tipping points within systems and emphasizes the importance of "systems thinking" in sustainability.

2017 Franke: Signs of Sustainability: Steps to Sustainability – Systems Thinking (Tompkins Weekly)This article explores systems thinking, building on previous discussions about tipping points and the history of this concept.

2017 Franke: Signs of Sustainability: Steps to Sustainability: Feedback (Tompkins Weekly) The article discusses the concept of feedback in systems, dividing it into negative and positive feedbacks.

2017 Suh: Agriculture and sustainable communities: Reflections from a comparative case study. The ecovillage movement places emphasis on the holistic sustainability of living. This study undertakes a comparative analysis of two forms of ecovillage development: establishing new intentional communities and retrofitting existing traditional villages. This article describes the achievements and limitations of intentional communities, with a special reference to the Findhorn Ecovillage in Scotland, Crystal Waters in Australia, and Ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI) in the US.

2016 Franke: Signs of Sustainability: Tipping Points. Installment in Signs of Sustainabiity in the Tompkins Weekly: Tipping points are crucial junctures in the behavior of systems where sudden, significant, and often irreversible changes occur, a concept fundamental to systems thinking.

2016 Watson: Aging in Community (at EVI). Watson, Wallace. 2016. Aging in Community: How an Older Couple Helped Launch a New Multi-Generational Ecovillage Neighborhood. Communities Magazine No. 172. Fall 2016. Pages 59 - 62, 77.

2016 Sherry & Ormsby: Sustainability in Practice: A Comparative Case Study Analysis of the Eco Village at Ithaca, Earthaven, and Sirius. Abstract: [...]ecovillages embody the land ethic espoused by Aldo Leopold, which "enlarges the boundaries of community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. Consensus, however, tends to result in decisions that the community can support over the long term.

2015 Hayes: Art as social change; Ithaca artist wins MLK contest. EVI Resident and artist Todd Ayoung won first place in the Tompkins County Office of Human Rights Contest “What Would Martin Luther King, Jr. Say.” Ithaca Journal of 6 February, 2015.

2015 Nunez: How These Communities Save Energy - and Time for What Matters. In December, 2015, National Geographic ran an online article under the title and subtitle: How These Communities Save Energy—and Time for What Matters

2014 Wheeler: Ithaca Journal Article on TREE Neighborhood. Ithaca Journal article by Simon Wheeler on 29 August, 2014 about the construction of the TREE neighborhood.

2014 Hall-Thurnheer: Gourd business sprouts new building 11 September, 2014, pages 3A-4A, Ithaca Journal article by Kitty Hall-Thurnheer on “Gourd Business Sprouts New Building.” Reports on the first business building at EVI built and managed by Otto and Graham Ottoson. Key Points: Hands on Gourds is the first commercial retail building at EcoVillage.

2013 Korkki: The New York Times on EVI and Retirement  Korkki, Phyllis. 2013. In Retiree Housing, Talking About Multigeneration. The New York Times, 12 March 2013. Photographs of EVI and interviews with residents about retiring with all age groups.

2012 Gilmore: Building a Multi-Family 50 kW Solar PV Array, Home Power Magazine. The article speaks on the challenges, financing, metering, tech specs, implementation, and benefits of the community PV project at EcoVillage Ithaca.

2012 Tompkins Weekly on FROG Solar Array. Article on the FROG solar array as published in Tompkins Weekly, January 30 – February 5, 2012

2010 Chitewere: Equity in Sustainable Communities: Exploring Tools from Environmental Justice and Political Ecology. Ecovillages are a growing trend in the effort to find social and environmentally sustainable ways to live. Focused on preserving land and creating a sense of community, their design aims to offer middleclass households a way to connect with each other and the natural environment. Yet missing from this concept is an effort to address equity and environmental injustice concerns.

2010 Chitewere & Taylor: Sustainable Living and Community Building in Ecovillage at Ithaca: The Challenges of Incorporating Social Justice Concerns into the Practices of an Ecological Cohousing Community. Abstract: This chapter analyzes a rural ecovillage (Ecovillage at Ithaca - EVI) to find out how the community conceptualizes and practices sustainability. The chapter also examines whether and how the community incorporates issues of equity and social justice into its activities.

2009 Breton: Ecovillages: How Ecological Are You? Communities Magazine. 143:22−24. 2009. Prudence-Elise Breton. The author finds that ecovillages can play powerful roles in the social transition to sustainability, but need to pay attention to quantification and evaluation to match their results to their intentions and become meaningful examples.

2008 Chitewere: Green Technology and the Design of a Green Lifestyle. Human Ecology Review, Vol. 15, No. 1, 2008. Pages 12-24. Debbie Van Schyndel Kasper. Compares 8 ecovillages including EVI on 11 characteristics including area, food grown, social interaction, decision-making etc. as well as with the US Averages where appropriate.

2008 Kasper: Redefining Community in the Ecovillage. Ecovillages provide important insights into the human dimensions of sustainability, but remain relatively unexplored.

2005 Allen-Gil, Walker, Thomas, Shevory, Elan: Forming a Community Partnership to Enhance Education in Sustainability. International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education Vol. 6 No. 4, 2005 pp. 392-402. Abstract: Purpose – To provide an example of how colleges can partner with local EcoVillages to further sustainability curriculum on campus and the educational mission of the EcoVillages, and to strengthen ties with the community.

2003 Kirby: Redefining Social and Environmental Relations at the Ecovillage at Ithaca: A Case Study. By Andy Kirby Journal of Environmental Psychology 23 (2003) 323–332. Abstract: The goal of the recently constructed ecovillage at Ithaca (EVI) is to create a ‘‘socially harmonious, economically viable and ecologically sustainable settlement that will demonstrate that human beings can live cooperatively with each other and with the
natural environment.’’ (EVI Housing Cooperative, undated)

1997 Vizard: Putting Up Housing With A Built-In Sense of Community. Article from the real estate section of the New York Times, 7 September, 1997 by Mary Vizard, describing some features of EVI and how they were influenced by the co-housing movement in Denmark.