Even a trailer can be green (or red)
Lloyd Alter
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When you look at the posts on housing in Planet Green and TreeHugger, the great majority are about things you can do to your house. But a single family house is not the only form of tenure that there is, and probably isn't the greenest. What are some of the others?
1. Renting instead of Owning
This is so looked down upon in the United States, and the government discourages it by making mortgage payments tax deductible. But there are some very good reasons to rent instead of own. Most of us no longer expect to work in the same job for all of our lives, yet buying a house ties us down in one place a lot more than renting. Why are New York and London so successful? Richard Florida writes:
"Housing tenure is not a given. It is associated with particular modes of production. Homeownership was a critical cog in the fordist economy - stimulating purchases of everything from cars and washing machines, spurring the large-scale development of infrastructure. But it is a significant institutional impediment to the flexibility, adjustment and mobility the creative economy requires. NYC and London will derive even greater benefits over time from high rates of renters. "
More in Is Home Ownership a Good Thing? and Is Home Ownership a Good Thing? Part II and Paul Krugman on Home Ownership
2. Cooperatives
Social Coops are common in Europe; our favourite is Vauban in Freiburg, Germany; they
"Organize building ownership through the co-op model ( called SUSI) where one provides a deposit, a "muscle mortgage" plus some subsidy. Co-op models "are the fertile ground for a stable district's community and rise of ecological awareness." Include dorms for students and a private developers to get a social mix of all ages and incomes. Prohibit single family houses as inappropriate for a compact urban built form."
More on Vauban: Solar Village by Rolf Disch
How to Build a Green, Car-free Community: Vauban
In many cities, social housing is set up as coops. They don't have to be dreary, as this new one in Toronto demonstrates: Co-op Housing in Toronto Goes Green
3. Dropping out, going off grid and offline
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| iStockphoto.com/James C. Pruitt |
Trevor writes how a Young Couple Says NO to a Mortgaged Life
"Amidst the Chihuahuan Desert, Abe and Josie built a home out of dirt, designed a wind turbine from scrap parts, and raised their newborn without diapers and other conveniences."
Ziggy did the same thing: Cob House Built For Less Than $3,000
4. Cohousing
Cohousing is based on the idea of "intentional neighbourhoods" where people consciously commit to living as a community. Or as Meaghan wrote in our first post on the subject: "In some ways, they hark back to the ideas of a kibbutz, a co-op, or commune, but in a more modern, Euro-style, not-so-hippy way."
Cohousing can be urban, like Eastern Village in Silver Spring, and an amazing Passivhaus cohousing project in Brooklyn.
It can also be an intentional community and even farm, like the Green Co-Housing Community Development In Nubanusit.
5. Trailer Park
Don't laugh. There are a lot of positive things to be said about this model of tenure, where you own your trailer or mobile home and rent the pad where you park it. There are a lot of shared facilities, the densities are high, the units are small. The problem has always been the design and manufacture of the units, usually as cheaply as possible.
But there are a lot of architects and manufacturers looking at building better, greener, healthier trailers, and a few developers looking at building better managed, greener and more upscale trailer parks. You will see a lot more of this model in the future. Look for examples like the Sustain Minihome (full disclosure: I liked it so much that I bought the prototype). In the UK, there is the M-house: The Trailer for the Tasteful. In North America, Clayton has jumped into the market with the I-house.
6. Transition Towns
Many people haven't heard about them yet, but Sami Grover of TreeHugger believes that the Transition movement "may well be the most important social movement of our time." British writer Leo Hickman suggests that it sometimes feels like a rebranding of the back-to-the-land movement of the hippie era, but it is very different, and works with existing communities, places that have a chance of surviving in a changing world. The nearest transition town to where this writer lives puts it very well on their website:
We firmly believe that, with dedication and commitment on the part of our community, its citizens, leaders and businesses, the serious challenges facing our society today can be met, and overcome, and that we can build a strong, resilient community that is significantly more connected, more vibrant and more in touch with our environment than the oil-addicted treadmill that we find ourselves on today.
More on Transition Towns:
Transition Towns: How Do They Stay Relevant?
Transition Towns USA in the New York Times
The Times Newspaper on Transition Towns & 'Apocalypse Now'
Transition Towns in America: UK Pioneer Interviewed (Video)
Transition Towns Are Spreading: Communities Take on Climate Change and Peak Oil
Transition Town Training - Coming to a Continent Near You
7. Eco-Villages
Unlike transition towns, these really are a flash from the past. Like this description of Dancing Rabbit Eco-Village:
Dancing Rabbit is an ecovillage in Missouri made up of cooperating communities, individuals and families that make ecological sustainability a priority in our lives. We use alternative and renewable energy (solar and wind), build strawbale homes, practice organic gardening, eat bioregionally, make decisions by consensus, and use biodiesel, a fuel made from vegetable oil, in our vehicles.
It is the home of Ziggy's amazing $3000 cob house, and many others like it. We have not given the eco-village movement a lot of coverage, but there appear to be a lot of them springing up in America and around the world. It seems very much a throwback; as Alastair Gordon wrote in his book Spaced Out:
What everyone shared in common was boundless faith mixed with a willingness to relearn everything, to embrace poverty and live as voluntary peasants. Inspired by Thoreau, they made little encampments with tents and tepees or in temporary sheds made from boughs and leaves. They weren't afraid. Some lived in converted trucks or vans.
Others are less hippie-ish, like the Eco-Village at Ithaca, New York. It is described as " an intentional community and a non-profit educational organization, the project is developing an alternative model for suburban living which provides a satisfying, healthy, socially rich lifestyle, while minimizing ecological impacts."
There seems to be a lot of demand; they have just started building their third neighbourhood, called "Tree"
8. Sharing
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| NBCU Photo Bank via AP Images |
There are so many empty rooms in America; kids grow up, families separate, spouses pass away. Particularly among seniors, there are a lot of very lonely people who could use a hand occasionally. If you enter "house share" into Google you will turn up a dozen search engines designed to help you find or share a house, but they are invariably from the UK or Australia. Easyroommate seems to have the biggest American audience, with 190,000 listings in the US and 27,000 in Canada, and appears to be directed primarily at young people looking for roommates.
But I suspect that there is a huge market out there for older people and active seniors.
9. Houseboats
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| Ryan McVay/Getty Images |
They are big on the west coast, where Sausalito hosts the prettiest houseboat community I have ever seen. But even on the Great Lakes, there are people who brave the winter in houseboats. In Europe, there is a flotilla of great new modern designs, many with green features and one even built out of old styrofoam coffee cups!
The advantages are similar to those in trailer parks- you rent your parking spot instead of owning it, have some flexibility and movability (though most stay parked forever, it's prime real estate). People adapt to living in quite small spaces. In some parts of the world, like the Netherlands, it is a good defence against rising waters resulting from climate change.
For more on Green Building and Materials: Green Materials Guide
More on Houseboats:
Villa Nackros: Swedish Floating Prefabs
Das Schwimmhausboot es gleitet! (The Float Houseboat Floats!)
Houseboats
Prefab on Water, MetroShip Introduces Sustainable Houseboats
Floating Eco-Homes In The Netherlands
Floating Homes Made From Coffee Cups with Green Walls
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