Investing in a Sustainable Future

Christopher Canfield

Cerro Gordo is a prototype symbiotic community dedicated to exploring and demonstrating viable approaches for a sustainable future. Residents, future residents and supporters are working together to plan, finance and build an environmentally sound, human-scaled settlement for up to 2500 people on 1200 acres on the north shore of Dorena Lake, near Eugene, Oregon. After a 2-year site search, extensive ecological studies were conducted to determine the site's carrying capacity and its intrinsic suitabilities for various land uses. Homes, businesses and community facilities will be clustered in and around a village where travel by private automobile will be rare. 1000 acres of forest and meadow will be preserved in their natural state. Both the ecological protections and the village building opportunities are permanently safe-guarded through the Cerro Gordon Community Trust. Most of our property is preserved as wildlife habitat, where roads and buildings are prohibited. Private automobiles will be banned from the town site and replaced by community transit, bicycling, walking and a community delivery service. Community-wide systems and standards will minimize resource use, maximize recycling, conserve energy and rely upon solar power in its many forms.

The community will be self-supporting, with a diversity of jobs provided by light production companies, education and publishing, community shops and organic agriculture. The town school will involve residents in a learning dialog with the children. While homes, home sites and businesses are privately owned, all residents are members of the democratic Cerro Gordo Cooperative, which owns and maintains community open space and utilities and facilitates community decisions and activities. The community building process emphasizes participation in a diverse yet mutually supportive community. We're seeking to create a neighbourly community living in harmony with the natural environment.

That is our dream, but what about the reality? We're happy to say, after many years of delays and difficulties, we've started building clustered solar homes at Cerro Gordo, and moved our first small manufacturing business on site. (Ed: Equinox Industries, a bicycle trailer manufacturer) We're pleased to see our dream becoming a reality, but success and even survival weren't always so certain.

Currently our extended community of several hundred households is reviewing and expanding our comprehensive plan. We're also planning construction of the Cerro Gordo Lodge and conference center, which will include a mini-village of clustered shops and offices and an outdoor amphitheatre. This new mini-village will be the focus of our increasing networking, publishing and educational programs on Cerro Gordo and the growing worldwide Ecocity Network. Last year Cerro Gordo was pleased to cosponsor the First International Ecocity Conference in Berkeley, California, along with Urban Ecology, the City of Berkeley, Planet Drum Foundation and Elmwood Institute. 150 speakers addressed the broad spectrum of how we can rebuild our civilization in balance with nature, and all 80 sessions are summarized in the 128 page book we co-published with Urban Ecology, Ecocity Conference 1990. Cerro Gordo is taking a key role in the growing Ecocity Network and the upcoming Ecocity conferences scheduled in Los Angeles this June and Australia next year.

Ecocity Conference 1990 is available for $6, the updated

Cerro Gordo Community Plan will be available soon for $5 and both are included with a Cerro Gordo Town Forum membership and newsletter subscription for $30 (all in US funds). Detailed reports are also available on Equinox Industries and the Cerro Gordo Forestry Cooperative, Write to Cerro Gordo, Dorena Lake, Box 569, Cottage Grove, Oregon 97424

Christopher Canfield
Excerpted from Catalyst Winter/Spring 1991 Vol viii no.1.
Subscriptions are $25/year from Catalyst, Box 1308, Montpelier, Vermont 05601 U.S.A.

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