When you hear the word “ecovillage,” you probably are not expecting to hear it in reference to a two-block area of Los Angeles, but that is where it is.
    Los Angeles Eco-Village (LAEV) is located just outside of the northern boundary of Wilshire Center, about two miles east of Larchmont. It was started 15 years ago by the Cooperative Resource and Service Project (CRSP) and has since become a hub for green activities and an incubator for green businesses.
    When asked to de-scribe CRSP’s role in the development of green businesses at LA Eco-Village, founder Lois Arkin explained that, “CRSP’s initial pur-pose was always to be an education and training center for the development of cooperatives, and, eventually to be a resource center for small ecological co-operative communi-ties and neighborhoods, as well.”
    CRSP’s role in promoting the development of small green businesses at LAEV has been pro-viding rent-free space and technical support for neighbor and community led projects. CRSP also acts as a catalyst for networking with like-minded indi-viduals.
    The Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition (LACBC) is one organization that was started by LA Eco-Village residents who used LAEV as a meeting hub for many of its early forming meetings. The LACBC works to increase bicycling as a means of trans-portation by advocating for safe and enjoyable bicycle infrastructure and working with the 88 civic jurisdictions throughout LA County.
    When asked how he thought the LACBC stands out as a model green busi-ness, LACBC co-founder Joe Linton, explained, “One of the biggest environ-mental problems in Los Angeles is overuse of cars. Cars contribute to problems with air quality, water quality, obesity, grid lock, smog, oil wars and global warming.” The use of bicycles as another means of transportation is an important part of the solution for ad-dressing these problems, according to Linton.
    Bicycles are defi-nitely something Eco-Villagers are passionate about. In 2002, two other Eco-Villagers started the Bicycle Kitchen, a local non-profit that promotes the bicycle as a means of transportation by teaching people how to fix and even build their own bikes. This project has been the inspiration for several other similar organizations such as the Bicrowave in Santa Monica and the Bike Oven in Highland Park.
    While the Bicycle Kitchen now boasts its own store front on Heliotrope at Melrose, it started out with an Eco-Villager, Jimmy Lizama, some bike tools, and an unused kitchen, provided rent-free by LA Eco-Village. And while the organization has grown in size, it still sticks to its cooperative origins, being a completely volunteer run or-ganization that asks for donations to help run the place, but will not turn away someone who lacks funds.
    One of LA Eco-Village’s newer green businesses is the LAEV Food Co-op. The Food Co-op started about a year ago under the inspi-ration of an Eco-Villager. The con-cept was to have a farmer deliver pro-duce directly to the LAEV where the mem-bers of the co-op would do the distri-bution work, ena-bling members to have local organic food at an afford-able price. The concept really took off.
   Currently, the LAEV Food Co-op con-sists of 35 members who all contribute about two hours a month of work to keep the operation running. For the price of just $10 a week, co-op members are able to get the same amount and quality of vegeta-bles that they could spend $20 or $30 for at the farmers market. And as Ron Mi-lam, an LAEV Food Co-op member, explained, “In the process of cooperating with each other we have also gotten to know each other and there is some-thing special about working side by side with your neighbors.”
    When asked what advice she had for Larchmont Chronicle readers encouraging and supporting small green business, Lois Arkin, said, “There are so many socially responsible residents in the Hancock Park area. This makes for exciting opportunities for residents to work with local nonprofit organizations in lo-calizing the food supply. The nonprofits could organize and vouch for small groups of experi-enced nearby farmers and match them to homeowners who would like to have some of their lawns trans-formed into small organic farms.”
    To learn more about the organiza-tions mentioned or how to start your own cooperative, visit Bicycle Kitchen, www.bicyclekitchen.com; CRSP, Cooperative Resource Service Project, www.laecovillage.org; Los Angeles County Bicycle Kitchen, www.la-bike.org; Los Angeles Ecovillage, www.laecovillage.org; LAEV Food Coop, http://urbansoil.net/wiki.cgi/LAEV_Food_Coop.
    Alison Rosenblatt works with CRSP co-ordinating permacul-ture workshops, a resource library, and facilitating the creation of a local currency system. She is a co-founder of NextGEN, the Next Generation of the Global Ecovillage Network, which works with youth through-out the world. She can be reached at al-ison@ecovillage.org.