Twenty years ago, Joan Boaker was just a young woman with a vision similar to our own – to build an ecological city. Today, her dream is a reality in the form of Ecovillage at Ithaca. Armed with only a bold vision, supportive friends and a flood of enthusiasm, Joan was able to create a self-sustaining community of 160 people that exist in harmony with the environment. This small village in rural New York serves as proof that our post-carbon city is attainable. While we are still in the planning stages of our own community, we can learn from Joan’s story and adopt some of the ideas that have made her village so successful. However, we must also develop our own innovative ideas to account for differences between a rural ecovillage in Ithaca and our urban village in San Francisco.
