Los Angeles Ecovillage

Sitting here in the shady, lush courtyard of Los Angeles Eco-Village, I can report that even in LA, amidst the worst excesses of oil dependency and consumerism, there are stlll people who care. Surrounded on 3 sides by the U-shaped 2-story apartment block that is the centre of the village, the courtyard is an oasis of calm. 18 varieties of fruit trees share the small space with chooks and vegetables, compost bins and solar cookers, with the constant roar of the city in the background.

Members of the intentional community live in this building and the one next door, with their own small apartments opening off internal corridors. A spacious lobby serves as a communal sitting room, and one of the apartments upstairs is used as the common dining room and kitchen. Organised activities include shared dinners once a week and a community meeting once a week, but there is also much casual interaction as people come and go.

LA Ecovillage started in 1993 after the riots sparked by the Rodney King verdict, at a time when many people were leaving LA for easier locations. Lois Arkin had lived in the area for 13 years, and been working on the idea of building a state-of-the-art ecovillage with the full gamut of eco-building, solar systems, internal money systems, etc that many have dreamed of over the years. Instead she made a decision at that time of great social unrest to stay in LA and work with what is here, and redefined the 2-block neighbourhood she lived in as an “eco-village”.

This area is a multi-ethnic neighbourhood only 3 miles from downtown LA, with a high proportion of low-income residents. For the first couple of years she and others made a conscious effort to meet and talk with their neighbours. They invited the kids to a street lunch, gave them a variety of fruits to try, and over time got the kids engaged in planting and caring for fruit trees on the street. They instituted “positive gossip”, learnng as much as they could about the good things that people were doing and spreading that to others, linking people and creating a sense of connection between them. They held neighbourhood meetings, asking people what they saw as the strengths and weaknesses of the neighbourhood, and what could be done to change that.

An earthquake in 1994 saw another general exodus from LA and property prices plummeted. The non-profit community development organisation CRSP that Lois had formed in 1980 managed to raise enough funds to buy the run-down 2-story apartment building of 40 studio units, and later another building next door with 8 larger units. Existing tenants were allowed to stay, and some still co-exist today with the 32 members of the intentional community. The original vision for transferring ownership of the land to a community land trust and the buildings to a limited equity housing trust to secure the ongoing non-profit ownershp, is only now coming close to realisation.

Both buildings were in disrepair and have required major renovation, and this is carried out where possible by upskilling members of the ecovillage. Eco-materials such as bamboo flooring and recycled tyre flooring have been used where possible.

Although some of the 500 people who live within the 2-block neighbourhood defined by LAEV as being part of the ecovillage area are only peripherally aware of this fact, many do participate in some activities, and a lot of effort is put into involving the wider neighbours wherever possible. Street fruit trees have signs explaining what they are and how to care for them. When mulch is delivered to the street verge for wheelbarrowing into the courtyard, signs are put up explaining what it is for. The small street has recently been further narrowed with widened berms for the trees and the pavement is made of permeable concrete, all visible signs that here is something a little different.

Several initiatives have arisen at LAEV and expanded into successful ventures. One is the "bicycle kitchen”, a bicycle repair cooperative that started in the kitchen of one of the units and has now found much expanded premises nearby. Bicycles have become the standard mode of transport for most residents here, with no parking rights given to members of the intentional community; the only cars parked on site belong to pre-existing residents. The wonderful gate to the back courtyard made of bike frames celebrates this central part of ecovillage culture.

An organic vege coop and pot-luck dinners once a week both draw participation from the wider community, as do the regular talks and workshops on permaculture and ecovillage issues. Sitting in the leafy courtyard at dusk after a delicious shared meal, with at least 5 animated conversations going on around me, I could be forgiven for thinking that LA is indeed very cool!