New Village: Building Sustainable Cultures

New Village:

Semiannual magazine edited by Lynne Elizabeth. New Village/ADPSR, 2000 Center Street, Suite 120, Berkeley, CA 94704. Annual (2-issue) subscription is $15 for individuals, $24 for institutions.

An outgrowth of the disarmament movement of the 1970s, Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility has been a diffuse group with pockets of active members in certain areas. This national organization has now come together to create an attractive and compelling new publication. The editor of

New Village, Lynne Elizabeth, also produced the now-discontinued

Earthword, which was the mouthpiece of the Eos Institute.

New Village offers a similar style and tone, with a combination of original articles and reprinted gems.

The inaugural issue of

New Village focuses on community revitalization. The articles are more about people and process than about buildings, although buildings are not ignored. Some of the articles, such as one about the loss of many neighborhood gardens in New York City to upscale development, are troubling. Most, however, are inspiring, featuring examples of successful neighborhoods and urban ventures created in spite of seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Not merely uplifting fluff—these articles are all rich in the sort of specific details that might allow others to understand how these lessons apply to their own situations.

Future issues of

New Village are slated to focus on neighborhood scale economies (Fall 1999) and education for public process (Spring 2000). Described in relation to a couple of my other favorite publications, this first issue of

New Village is somewhere between the inspiring but brief style of

Yes magazine and the artsy-political-intellectual tone of

Designer/builder.

– NM