Thinking of our natural environment, we may feel unfortunate and fortunate at the same time; unfortunate for intoxicating it to an alarming level; and yet fortunate enough for developing awareness of this threat to the beauty, health, and future of life on our planet. Better late than never! Now, we face the challenge of preventing further damage to our surroundings and restoring the damaged part to normalcy. This leads us to the issue of establishing eco-conscious, environment-friendly communities – the popular slogan of green living.

Less-developed rural societies are usually much closer to life’s natural habitat and are, therefore, free of the many environmental concerns that are thwarting industrialized urban life. Rural communities, if kept from using harmful products and following certain urban practices that pollute the environment, are very close to be called environmental friendly communities. For modern cities (especially the big/crowded ones) with an overwhelming number of vehicles, factories, and synthetic chemical products – all ending up in toxic pollutants – we need to look for some environmental friendly solution. Put simply, we are asking ‘how to turn urban population into environmental friendly communities?’

One may suggest two main approaches to achieve this goal. First, we may press on stopping rapid urbanization of land and further rural lifestyle through cultivation and farming. But such conversion, if possible at all, cannot be extended over a large part of land that has already been urbanized or needs to be turned into cities due to governmental/private policies. The facilities enjoyed in urban life are hard to give up. Besides, a radical return to rural life will not be free of many unruly challenges, not to say of the view that we are falling into regression. To keep the balance and save our day as being a ‘creative’ species, we may therefore devise plans to establish environmental friendly communities without losing our cities.

Developing urban environmental friendly communities has become a subject of great interest to people from many walks of life, especially those concerned with urbanization, environment, and economy. A number of strategies for green living, within the cities, have been worked out and employed in daily life by many environment-conscious people. Some of the important strategies for ameliorating natural environment include: conservation easement of land, energy-efficient construction, use of alternate/renewable energy sources, home landscaping and organic gardening, prevention/minimization of toxic chemicals, and sustainable living. As we discuss these strategies specifically in more pages, we learn that getting involved with the environment through educational and volunteer programs is an invaluable step toward establishing environmental friendly communities.

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