"Building the New Community: A Lesson from Prairie Crossing"

Prairie Crossing is a widely acclaimed conservation community in Grayslake, Illinois. Working from “10 Guiding Principles”, the community was designed to combine the preservation of open land, the creation of a sense of community, easy commuting by rail, and responsible economic development. It is now considered a national example of how to plan our communities to enhance the environment and support a better way of life. The sense of community has been developed in large part around two broadly held values: “caring for the earth” and “producing healthy food”. Many of the lessons learned about the integration of food production into a new community has been summarized in “Building Communities with Farms” available at http://prairiecrossing.com/libertyprairiefoundation/cwf.pdf