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Some off-the-grid communities are little more than subdivisions beyond the reach of any power company, where homeowners fend for themselves. Some off-the-grid communities take the intentional community approach, a gathering of like-minded residents living in a cooperative manner (and if you think that sounds like a commune, well, you’d be right).

Emerald Earth This intentional community on 189 acres Mendocino County near Boonville, Calif., was founded in 1989. The dozen or so people living here share a common house with a main kitchen, eating and meeting areas and shower. There is also a bathhouse/greenhouse with a sauna, showers and garden greenhouse. There are four small cabins heated by passive solar and wood stoves. Solar panels and a gas generator provide electricity. Use of composting outhouses means there is no need for a septic system.

Passive Annual Heat Storage (PAHS) is a method of collecting natural heat all summer, when there’s more of it, and saving it until winter when it’s needed, effectively maintaining over time a constant effective natural resource base. Building materials are arranged in a special configuration to merely change the balance of natural heat flow of a conventional design. Heat is thereby directed from wherever we get it to wherever we want it, all without using machinery to make it work. With the rising cost of energy inclining more people towards sustainable living, all home builders should educate themselves about basic PAHS principles!

The mission of the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities is to create strong, sustainable communities by connecting housing to jobs, fostering local innovation, and helping to build a clean energy economy. In order to better connect housing to jobs, the office will work to coordinate federal housing and transportation investments with local land use decisions in order to reduce transportation costs for families, improve housing affordability, save energy, and increase access to housing and employment opportunities. By ensuring that housing is located near job centers and affordable, accessible transportation, we will nurture healthier, more inclusive communities which provide opportunities for people of all ages, incomes, races, and ethnicities to live, work, and learn together.

The Sustainable Communities Act allows councils, after taking advice from local people, to present proposals for government action that will help local communities to be more sustainable and offer better quality of life. The Act aims to provide a channel to propose changes to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of an area, including participation in civic or political activity. It is aimed at givng people the power to change the environment they live in. Local councils are invited to make proposals to central government as to how it can help them promote the sustainability of local communities. To do this, councils need to talk to local people to find out what would help them.

Slow Food is an idea, a way of living and a way of eating. It is part of a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members in over 150 countries, which links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environm