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In many ways, Shinhyocheon is just a typical suburb. It’s in Nam-gu, on the southern outskirts of Gwangju, one of South Korea’s biggest cities. In fact, if you don’t look closely, the Shinhyocheon solar village is easy to miss. Of the 1.4 million people living in Gwangju, most have never heard of it. Local taxi drivers wrinkle their brows and shrug; even the tourist information center in downtown Gwangju has trouble finding it on the map.

But for those who know it, Shinhyocheon deserves a place in energy history. In 2004, it became South Korea’s first solar village – a neighborhood of 64 solar powered houses where residents enjoy cheap, clean energy. The solar panels in this neighborhood generate over 115 MW of energy in a year. For each resident, that translates into an annual savings of around $589 USD, or a total of $37,700 for all 64 houses combined.

Inspired by Shinhyocheon’s success, the local government is planning to expand the number of solar houses in Nam-gu by adding 340 new sun-powered residential buildings.

This week, the writers at EcoWorldly will explore ecocities around the world. Stay tuned to this topic by checking in daily at EcoWorldly, or subscribe to our RSS feed to receive email updates.

Having just heard from Keith Rockmael at San Francisco’s Ecocity World Summit 2008, we decided to take a closer look at ecocities, starting with the question “what makes an ecocity?”

British actress, Dame Judi Dench, who played Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love, protests building an eco-town Stratford-on-Avon.

The 73 year old actress is furious over British government’s plans of a carbon-neutral village about six miles (9.65 kilometres) from Stratford upon-Avon.

Photo Courtesy Miramax Films

The UK’s first eco community has been granted permission to start building a mini eco village. The community will consist of nine families who are going to build their houses from straw bale, mud and timber in the Welsh village of Glandwr.

The community is called the Lammas and the members will build four detached dwellings and a row of five attached houses on a plot of 76 acres. They’re going to live off-grid and collect their water from a spring that’s existing on site as well as from rain water captured on the turf-made roofs of their houses.

After a brief hiccup last week (call it the Senior Editor in vacation mode!), we're pleased to get back to our content swap with Naturalpath, the green health community. This week, we're featuring an article on a concept that's rapidly growing around the world: eco communities. What are they? According to the article,

Eco villages seek to unite two emerging truths: human life thrives best in small, supportive, healthy communities, and that the

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