ART

An eco-city is a city built off the principles of living within the means of the environment. The ultimate goal of many eco-cities is to eliminate all carbon waste (zero-carbon city), to produce energy entirely through renewable resources, and to incorporate the environment into the city; however, eco-cities also have the intentions of stimulating economic growth, reducing poverty, organizing cities to have higher population densities, and therefore higher efficiency, and improving health.

 

The concept of the “eco-city” was born out of one of the first organizations focused on eco-city development, “Urban Ecology.” The group was founded by Richard Register in Berkeley, California in 1975, and was founded with the idea of reconstructing cities to be in balance with nature. They worked to plant trees along the main streets, built solar greenhouses, and worked within the Berkeley legal system to pass environmentally friendly policies and encourage public transportation. Urban Ecology then took the movement another step further with the creation of The Urban Ecologist, a journal they started publishing in 1987.